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Astral Codex Ten
Take The 2025 ACX Survey ...
6 months ago
The American Scholar
Kinship and Contradictions Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and...
6 months ago
53
6 months ago
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and Contradictions appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Cats and Dogs The post Cats and Dogs appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The American Scholar
Imperfecta Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the...
a year ago
37
a year ago
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing The post Imperfecta appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Taken For A Ride There’s a visceral reaction when the idea of an autonomous car is brought up. “No way!” “I don’t...
9 months ago
10
9 months ago
There’s a visceral reaction when the idea of an autonomous car is brought up. “No way!” “I don’t trust robots.” “How can that even be safe?” These are commonplace in the discourse of driverless vehicles. Some protestors have even placed cones on the vehicles’ sensors and cameras...
This Space
Kevin Hart and the outside There are two reasons why listening to Kevin Hart's interview on the Hermitix podcast, and reading...
a year ago
88
a year ago
There are two reasons why listening to Kevin Hart's interview on the Hermitix podcast, and reading his new collection and The Dark Gaze for the second time, has helped me to recognise what I have forgotten, missed, misconstrued or misunderstood in Maurice Blanchot's writing or,...
The Marginalian
The Wanting Monster: An Almost Unbearably Tender Illustrated Spell Against the Curse of Not Enough Wanting is the menacing margin of error between desire and need. It is the blade that vivisects your...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Wanting is the menacing margin of error between desire and need. It is the blade that vivisects your serenity, the hammer that shatters your wholeness — to want anything is to deem your life incomplete without it. It is a perpetual motion machine that keeps you restlessly...
The American Scholar
Ups and Downs The post Ups and Downs appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
What Happened To NAEP Scores? ...
3 months ago
The American Scholar
Red Tide Warning Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and...
a year ago
95
a year ago
Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and neighbors who don’t always believe what they see The post Red Tide Warning appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Riding With Mr. Washington How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr....
10 months ago
48
10 months ago
How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr. Washington appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Plato's Republic - justice, fantasy and censorship - We'll ask Homer not to be angry I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with some thoroughness, but I guess I will just...
over a year ago
91
over a year ago
I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with some thoroughness, but I guess I will just pursue one point.  Good enough. I have been separating Socrates from Plato, an imaginative exercise based on circular criteria.  The more Socratic of the Socratic dialogues are...
The Marginalian
Beautiful Bacteria: Mesmerizing Photomicroscopy of Earth’s Oldest Life-forms For as long as humans have been alive, we have mistaken the limits of our sense-perception for the...
8 months ago
61
8 months ago
For as long as humans have been alive, we have mistaken the limits of our sense-perception for the full extent of reality — thinking our galaxy the only one, because that was as far as we could see; thinking life impossible below 300 fathoms, because that was as far as we could...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A State of Vagary, Doubt and Indecision' There’s a tidy part of me that wants things resolved, whether a lawsuit or a differential equation....
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
There’s a tidy part of me that wants things resolved, whether a lawsuit or a differential equation. No sloppy inconsistencies, no denouements hanging by a thread. I used to love IRS Form 1040EZ: subtract one number from another, sign your name and wait for the refund. I had a...
Ben Borgers
An emoji picker epiphany
over a year ago
The American Scholar
A Pair of Elephants The post A Pair of Elephants appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 365.5 ...
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'[C]onservatives Should Embrace the Novel' Fifteen years ago, in a blog post titled “Conservative novels,”  my friend the late D.G. Myers...
3 weeks ago
10
3 weeks ago
Fifteen years ago, in a blog post titled “Conservative novels,”  my friend the late D.G. Myers critiqued a “top-ten” list of that literary species assembled by a writer at The National Review. David called the list “strangely disappointing,” and it’s tough to argue with that...
Astral Codex Ten
Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count? ...
4 months ago
Robert Caro
Six Books, Six New York Times Book Review Covers Since the 1974 publication of The Power Broker, every book by Robert Caro has appeared on the cover...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Since the 1974 publication of The Power Broker, every book by Robert Caro has appeared on the cover of The New York Times Book Review.
The Marginalian
We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt, the Power of Defiant Goodwill, and the Art of... "It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most...
a year ago
33
a year ago
"It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most bleak, that the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously, and complicatedly, matters the most."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Utterly Intoxicated by His Affection' Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a...
a month ago
16
a month ago
Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a father who failed to claim his son, however mangy or hunchbacked he was. Not that he does not perceive his defect, unless he is utterly intoxicated by his affection; but the fact...
ribbonfarm
Imagination vs. Creativity I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with....
11 months ago
29
11 months ago
I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with. Imagination is the ability to see known possibilities as being reachable from a situation. Creativity is the ability to manufacture new possibilities out of a situation. The two...
Josh Thompson
Make Hard Things Easier by Removing Friction Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes resources (time, energy, money, physical goods.) Anything that causes negative feelings (shame, doubt, guilt, fear.) Anything that could have a downside (losing money, respect, your...
This Space
The end of literature, part four This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain and France declaring war on Germany. Not that the coincidence means much. At least, no more than what the general population, interest and powerful mean here, or indeed what poetry...
The Marginalian
The Stunning Mystical Paintings of the 16th-Century Portuguese Artist Francisco de Holanda Blake before Blake, Hilma before Hilma.
over a year ago
The Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
The Art of Coping In a time of anger, frustration, and anxiety, the humanities have much to teach us about how to deal...
a month ago
5
a month ago
In a time of anger, frustration, and anxiety, the humanities have much to teach us about how to deal with life The post The Art of Coping appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Winter on Two Pairs of Socks We’re minimalists, mostly. We try to not have a bunch of stuff. This naturally extends to the...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
We’re minimalists, mostly. We try to not have a bunch of stuff. This naturally extends to the wardrobe. I’ll cover more about what we wear another time, but for now, I want to give you an idea. With the right socks, you can go an entire winter with just two pairs of socks. You...
Wuthering...
Two poisonous Tanizaki novels, Naomi and Quicksand - the same as a fruit that I’d cultivated myself Two Junichiro Tanizaki novels from the 1920s for Japanese Literature Month over at Dolce...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
Two Junichiro Tanizaki novels from the 1920s for Japanese Literature Month over at Dolce Bellezza.  Always interesting to see what people are reading.  Thanks as usual.  18th edition! The two novels I read, Naomi (1924) and Quicksand (1928-30), are closely related.  Both...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Art of Taking It Slow Petersen believes that the bike industry’s focus on racing—along with ‘competition and a pervasive...
9 months ago
20
9 months ago
Petersen believes that the bike industry’s focus on racing—along with ‘competition and a pervasive addiction to technology’—has had a poisonous influence on cycling culture. He dislikes the widespread marketing to recreational riders of spandex kits, squirty energy gels, and...
The Marginalian
Of Stars, Seagulls, and Love: Loren Eiseley on the First and Final Truth of Life Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people,...
10 months ago
76
10 months ago
Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people, and yet all personal love is but a fractal of a larger universal love. Some call it God. I call it wonder. Dante called it “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Do you miss Twitter? Twitter remained fun for a bit after that, but it became harder to ignore that there was a dark...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Twitter remained fun for a bit after that, but it became harder to ignore that there was a dark cloud emerging. And that for people that didn’t look like me, that cloud might’ve always been there. — Mike Monteiro Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Escaping Flatland
Almost everyone I’ve met would be well-served thinking more about what to focus on Including me
a year ago
The Marginalian
Youth and Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what...
over a year ago
80
over a year ago
A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great."
Josh Thompson
Growing in your first software development job I started my first software developer role a year ago. (November 2017) This is tremendously...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I started my first software developer role a year ago. (November 2017) This is tremendously exciting, of course, but introduces its own set of challenges, like: I finished Turing and I’ve got a job! Oh snap. I just finished a grueling program, and my reward is I’m fit to sit at...
Ben Borgers
Website Rewrite
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'So a Fool Returneth to His Folly' Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller,...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
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...
Josh Thompson
Content but Restless There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard the “serenity prayer”: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. This prayer is...
Ben Borgers
tmrw
over a year ago
sbensu
Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union Notes from reading the book by Zubok
a year ago
The Elysian
Maybe villages are our future—not cities Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of interconnected villages.
The Elysian
Hint #2 I'm publishing a new print collection in two weeks.
10 months ago
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
15
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...
This Space
Favourite books 2020 Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone exceeds the number of books I'm able to read in a year let alone the number from which it was presumably narrowed down. This is why I suggested a couple of years ago such pages choose...
The Elysian
We should own the economy A new book about the future of capitalism and an invitation to participate in it.
4 months ago
The Marginalian
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside: Doris Lessing on the Antidote to Self-Righteousness and Our Best... This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand with the masses turning the individuals within them on each other, stirring certainties and self-righteousness to distract from the uncomfortable unknowns, from the great open...
The Elysian
Please come up with wildly speculative futures Inside my writing philosophy.
a year ago
The Elysian
Creating a global safety net without nation-states A Guest Lecture featuring Sondre Rasch, co-founder and CEO of SafetyWing.
a month ago
Naz Hamid
Modus Operandi My operating rules and way of living. This is a m.o. (mo) page, or modus operandi page. It lists out...
2 months ago
44
2 months ago
My operating rules and way of living. This is a m.o. (mo) page, or modus operandi page. It lists out the way I approach my life and the rules I apply to it to thrive. This is a living document and will be added to as more comes to mind, or as I develop new ones. It is mirrored at...
The Marginalian
Against Death: Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti on Grieving a Parent, Grieving the World, and What Makes... The year is 1937. Elias Canetti (July 25, 1905–August 14, 1994) — Bulgarian, Jewish, living in...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
The year is 1937. Elias Canetti (July 25, 1905–August 14, 1994) — Bulgarian, Jewish, living in Austria as the Nazis are rising to power — has just lost his mother; his mother, whose bottomless love had nurtured the talent that would win him the Nobel Prize in his seventies; his...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Living Well as a Practice Quality is my third focus area, extending beyond just food choices. I’m being more intentional about...
6 months ago
19
6 months ago
Quality is my third focus area, extending beyond just food choices. I’m being more intentional about the media I consume and the things I bring into my life. This means fewer impulse purchases, more thoughtful choices about what I read and watch, and a general shift toward...
Ben Borgers
Tufts Meal Plan Wrapped
a year ago
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...
3 weeks ago
14
3 weeks ago
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
Open Thread 371 ...
4 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
The Twins Join The Linguistic-Symbolic Order ...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Was Written By a Madman' Can we be privately embarrassed in the solitude of our skulls, without an audience?...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
Can we be privately embarrassed in the solitude of our skulls, without an audience? Embarrassment seems like a response to a social setting. In that sense, it resembles involuntary amusement. To laugh helplessly, out loud when alone, is rare among the sane. I think embarrassment...
This Space
The Opposite Direction, a book Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of...
over a year ago
59
over a year ago
Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of this blog.  This is the second collection after This Space of Writing and the title comes from the adolescent Thomas Bernhard's phrase repeated to an official at the labour exchange...
The Marginalian
There’s a Ghost in the Garden: A Subtle and Soulful Illustrated Fable about Memory and Mystery One of the things no one tells us as we grow up is that we will be living in a world rife with...
7 months ago
39
7 months ago
One of the things no one tells us as we grow up is that we will be living in a world rife with ghosts — all of our disappointed hopes and our outgrown dreams, all the abandoned novels and unproven theorems, all the people we used to love, all the people we used to be. A ghost is...
Josh Thompson
Pry-ing into a Stack Trace I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting errors. I git stashed, and re-ran my tests, and still got errors. Here’s the full stacktrace: > b ruby -Itest test/models/model_name_redacted_test.rb -n=/errors/ # Running tests...
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
15
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Transitioning from the Attention Era to the Automation Era This new era – the Automation Era – is marked by platforms managing the content and connections for...
7 months ago
15
7 months ago
This new era – the Automation Era – is marked by platforms managing the content and connections for you, so you can spend your attention elsewhere. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Context Setting for certain patterns & classes of relationship difficulties I’ve been “catching up” a lot in my life lately. Some of that catching up involves bringing up to...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I’ve been “catching up” a lot in my life lately. Some of that catching up involves bringing up to speed various people I’ve not spoken too (or spoken too much, or openly, or recently, or ever, or some combination thereof). I am strongly biased towards written/editable/consistent...
The American Scholar
Heart of Semi-Darkness A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The...
10 months ago
47
10 months ago
A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
On Change and Denial "It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to...
a year ago
93
a year ago
"It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to accompany it like birds flocking before a storm."
The Marginalian
Henry James on Losing a Mother "These are hours of exquisite pain; thank Heaven this particular pang comes to us but once."
over a year ago
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
26
7 months ago
Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War The post Divided Providence appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 2009 The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't...
a year ago
92
a year ago
The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't already written about and among those few that I feel able to write about. For 2009 there is one outstanding exception: another book about a writer exiled in Paris. Already in this...
Naz Hamid
Your Site Is a Home Create a home that gives you energy. In meatspace, if you’re fortunate, you likely reside somewhere....
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Create a home that gives you energy. In meatspace, if you’re fortunate, you likely reside somewhere. How that looks varies from person-to-person. For some, they own. For others, they rent. For those who don’t subscribe to a stationary life, it may be a vehicle, van, or camper. Or...
Wuthering...
The Nicomachean Ethics - moderate Aristotle - clarity within the limits of the subject matter I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul...
over a year ago
59
over a year ago
I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul Morson’s extraordinary new study of the ethics if Russian literature: Our discussion will be adequate if it achieves clarity within the limits of the subject matter.  For precision...
This Space
39 Books: 1993 I've written about Gert Hofmann's novels a few times, most recently Veilchenfeld (Our Philosopher in...
a year ago
51
a year ago
I've written about Gert Hofmann's novels a few times, most recently Veilchenfeld (Our Philosopher in the US edition), but not his short stories. In the year Hofmann died aged only 62, I bought and read Balzac's Horse and other stories in the wonderful Minerva paperback imprint....
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
14
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...
The Marginalian
Any Common Desolation "You may have to break your heart, but it isn’t nothing to know even one moment alive."
3 months ago
The Elysian
Week 5: Write one (pitchable) think piece
a year ago
The Perry Bible...
0 Percent Chance The post 0 Percent Chance appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
3 months ago
The Marginalian
Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated "It began as an almost inaudible hum..."
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 358 ...
7 months ago
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
Anecdotal Evidence
'All That Is Human Slips Away' Varlam Shalamov (1907-82), who ought to know, opens a poem with this line: “Memory has veiled / much...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
Varlam Shalamov (1907-82), who ought to know, opens a poem with this line: “Memory has veiled / much evil . . .” Shalamov survived almost eighteen years in the Gulag, in the Arctic region known as Kolyma. His final imprisonment, from 1937 to 1951, was imposed after he referred to...
Wuthering...
it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap - Peter Adamson's Classical Philosophy, the... Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without Any Gaps.  What can that mean, without any gaps? We’ve finished Aristotle, and it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap.  In an undergraduate philosophy course you...
Ben Borgers
How I got scammed on Facebook Marketplace
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Grandstanding I love this moment of moments. Jen, Grant, and Ryan doing their own thing. The Grandstand in Death...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
I love this moment of moments. Jen, Grant, and Ryan doing their own thing. The Grandstand in Death Valley is an astonishing playa, and worth every single moment. Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
Robert Caro
Misery Acres: An Investigative Series Perhaps Caro’s most influential work during his years at Newsday was the investigative series,...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Perhaps Caro’s most influential work during his years at Newsday was the investigative series, “Misery Acres,” a withering expose of fraud.
The Marginalian
Practical Mysticism: Evelyn Underhill’s Stunning Century-Old Manifesto for Secular Transcendence and... "Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels;...
over a year ago
92
over a year ago
"Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they misrepresent."
This Space
39 Books: 2020 It may be a sign of something that I read Louis-René des Forêts's Poems of Samuel Wood several years...
a year ago
90
a year ago
It may be a sign of something that I read Louis-René des Forêts's Poems of Samuel Wood several years after reading A Voice from Elsewhere in which Maurice Blanchot dedicates three unusually personal (and often bewildering) essays to them. The book's title is adapted from a line...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Let This Be a Moment A moment when you discover that legacy media is not in your best interest, being fueled by...
6 months ago
18
6 months ago
A moment when you discover that legacy media is not in your best interest, being fueled by advertising and bureaucratic bullshit. If you've worked anywhere, you should understand that no organization is immune to this. A moment when you might consider stepping out of your shoes...
Wuthering...
What I Read in June 2025 - A life of agony was all for naught. My summer plan was to read, short, easy books, and I almost succeeded.  I read short, difficult...
2 days ago
9
2 days ago
My summer plan was to read, short, easy books, and I almost succeeded.  I read short, difficult books in French, and accidentally read several grim, sad, violent books, alongside some playful nonsense.   FICTION The Field of Life and Death (1935), Xiao Hong – For example.  Ninety...
Josh Thompson
About Roundabouts I’m desperately trying to work through a giant back-log of writings. Please see write it now for...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I’m desperately trying to work through a giant back-log of writings. Please see write it now for more. I’m spending only a few minutes on this, forgive my errors. Of late, I’ve had a lot of conversations about roundabouts. I’m basically trying to explain the ways that a mobility...
Wuthering...
Books I read in February 2024 - if there is truth in poets' prophesies, then in my fame forever will... Persian literature in March: the epic Shahnameh in Dick Davis’s mostly prose translation, plus the...
a year ago
85
a year ago
Persian literature in March: the epic Shahnameh in Dick Davis’s mostly prose translation, plus the classical poets he translated in Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz, plus some Rumi and at least one contemporary Iranian novel, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s The Colonel (2009). ...
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...
6 months ago
45
6 months ago
A discussion about misinformation, echo chambers, media spin, social trolling, and how we can create something better.
The American Scholar
“Snow” by Louis MacNeice Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snow” by Louis MacNeice appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in November 2023 Recovery from surgery leads to a long list of books. (Everything is going well, by the way,...
a year ago
78
a year ago
Recovery from surgery leads to a long list of books. (Everything is going well, by the way, thanks).  My idea of a “comfort read” is a book on a subject about which I do not know much – start me over at the beginning – thus my enthusiastic Indian literature project, which is...
The Marginalian
The Heart of Matter: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on Bridging the Scientific and the Sacred "Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever new-born; you who, by...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
"Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever new-born; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth."
Josh Thompson
Taking the Plunge with Colemak This entire post is written in Colemak. I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
This entire post is written in Colemak. I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is certainly harder than copying someone else’s words. I have completed a few hours of dedicated practice, and it is quite possible that I am jumping the gun, and will quickly revert to...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in May 2023 I had a good time. GREEK PHILOSOPHY The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post,...
over a year ago
124
over a year ago
I had a good time. GREEK PHILOSOPHY The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post, however shallow, should appear soon. FICTION Joseph in Egypt (1936), Thomas Mann The Long Valley (1938) & The Grapes of Wrath (1939), John Steinbeck - I last read this probably...
Ben Borgers
Covid Test Instructions
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential... "To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic...
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
16
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...
This Space
Favourite books 2022 This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable books of the year lists, though I enjoyed those not included in this selection. Jon Fosse – Septology Thomas Bernhard – The Rest is Slander "we are concealing a secret, a secret...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Maripedia The print library Maripedia offers you an overview of Marimekko’s art of printmaking from the 1950s...
11 months ago
12
11 months 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Books Which Can Be Read Again and Again' “The great bulk of the world’s prose fiction, contemporary and past, does not wear well. Almost all...
a month ago
7
a month ago
“The great bulk of the world’s prose fiction, contemporary and past, does not wear well. Almost all of it is soon forgotten and of those books which survive the wear of time, only a few withstand the effects of time on the reader himself. Out of all the novels ever written there...
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
28
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...
ribbonfarm
Decision Brownouts In thinking about decision-making under stress, most people focus on fight-or-flight responses. Both...
a year ago
19
a year ago
In thinking about decision-making under stress, most people focus on fight-or-flight responses. Both fighting and fleeing are obvious courses of action that inherit a clear sense of direction from the characteristics of the threat itself, and are energized by the automatic...
Ploum.net
La conjuration de la fierté ignorante La conjuration de la fierté ignorante Les scientifiques, les vulgarisateurs, les professeurs...
7 months ago
14
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...
The American Scholar
“A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
The newness of depth Fragments from the cutting room floor, vol 4
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
On Minimalism I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance is because I think the label brings in a bunch of connotations that I don’t like. Our apartment never looked like this. Source: home-designing.com What is Minimalism? a removal or...
The Marginalian
2,000 Years of Kindness From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
Wuthering...
Books I read in December 2023 - No one’s worse than you, she says Lots of short fantasy fiction this month, perhaps everything in the first section except the May...
a year ago
49
a year ago
Lots of short fantasy fiction this month, perhaps everything in the first section except the May Sarton novel and Eugene O’Neill play, balanced by a complementary pair of Holocaust memoirs. NOVELS, STORIES & A PLAY Ocean of Story, Vol. 1 (11th cent.),  Somadeva, tr. C. H....
The Elysian
What movement does the world need now? Your answers to December's writing prompt.
5 months ago
The American Scholar
“A Blessing” by James Wright Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “A Blessing” by James Wright appeared first on The American...
a month ago
Ben Borgers
Current Self and Going to Libraries
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Your Soul Is a Blue Marble: How to See with an Astronaut’s Eyes When the first hot air balloonists ascended into the skies of the eighteenth century, they saw...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
When the first hot air balloonists ascended into the skies of the eighteenth century, they saw rivers crossing borders and clouds passing peacefully over battlefields. They saw the planet not as a patchwork of plots and kingdoms but as a vast living organism veined with valleys...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: Fix Capitalism By September 30th.
10 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 361 ...
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
Sidekiq and Background Jobs for Beginners I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I was working on. I learned a lot. Much of it was extremely basic. Anyone who knows much at all about Sidekiq will say “oh, duh, of course that’s true”, but at the time, it wasn’t...
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
82
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...
This Space
39 Books: 2004 Bought for an eye-watering £13 in the LRB Bookshop three months before this blog began, Once Again...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Bought for an eye-watering £13 in the LRB Bookshop three months before this blog began, Once Again for Thucydides is another example in this series of how a book of under 100 pages can be worth as much as any number of maximalist breeze blocks. But do I really want to make such...
The Marginalian
Everything Is Happening All the Time: Legendary Physicist John Archibald Wheeler on Death and the... “To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of...
8 months ago
36
8 months ago
“To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of life. “What happens when you get to the end of things?” four-year-old Johnny in Ohio asks his mother from the bathtub while Whitman’s borrowed atoms are becoming young grass in a...
Josh Thompson
Twenties vs. Thirties (from a feeling-behind-the-curve 27 year old.) Some months ago I found a very encouraging article, comparing one’s twenties to one’s thirties. I’ve...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Some months ago I found a very encouraging article, comparing one’s twenties to one’s thirties. I’ve scoured everywhere that I stick notes and interesting reads, and cannot, for the life of me, find the article. The internet is littered with tons of fluff pieces talking about sex...
The American Scholar
We Contain Multitudes Why do so few of us exercise the many talents with which we are born? The post We Contain Multitudes...
a month ago
3
a month ago
Why do so few of us exercise the many talents with which we are born? The post We Contain Multitudes appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poems Can Be True in Different Ways' Something seems to be stirring out there. I’m too cautious and cynical to proclaim a renaissance in...
5 months ago
18
5 months ago
Something seems to be stirring out there. I’m too cautious and cynical to proclaim a renaissance in formalist poetry but the prognosis is promising. Clarence Caddell, an Australian, has published the second issue of The Borough: A Journal of Poetry. I wrote about the first issue...
The American Scholar
Good Intentions The post Good Intentions appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Wuthering...
Plato's Symposium - philosophy as realist fiction - pick up something to tickle your nose with, and... Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with an anxiety-deflating observation:  Symposium is fiction, a long story.  It is fiction in that at least some of it is invented, but mostly in that it uses the techniques of fiction:...
The Elysian
This Chinese philosopher reformed politics in one generation Mòzǐ replaced his corrupt government with a humanist one.
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
Climbing in "decking range" In indoor sport climbing, as your climber progresses from the ground to the first three bolts, you...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
In indoor sport climbing, as your climber progresses from the ground to the first three bolts, you need to be ready for any situation. Here’s how to give a kick-ass lead belay when your climber is close enough to the ground they could potentially deck. This is part of a series on...
ben-mini
What’s Preventing Us from Building a Beautiful Product? I just finished listening to Lenny’s conversation with Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, about what...
5 months ago
35
5 months ago
I just finished listening to Lenny’s conversation with Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, about what it takes to build a great SaaS product. Like many SaaS apps, the Kibu team and I have taken inspiration from Linear. But as we plan our roadmap and implement new solutions, I ask...
The Marginalian
Turning from Peril to Possibility: Ecological Superhero Christiana Figueres on the Spirituality of... Few things have maimed the spirit of Western civilization more than the myth of our expulsion from...
a year ago
62
a year ago
Few things have maimed the spirit of Western civilization more than the myth of our expulsion from the Garden of Eden — a deeply damaging story about human nature, damning us and our relationship to nature. Unthinkingly, we have perpetuated this story in our present narrative...
Wuthering...
The Girl from Samos by Menander - I don’t think any one individual is better at birth than any other It’s our last plays, the last surviving Greek play, The Girl from Samos (315 BCE) by Menander.  How...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
It’s our last plays, the last surviving Greek play, The Girl from Samos (315 BCE) by Menander.  How tastes, or circumstances, had changed in the seventy years since Wealth, our last Aristophanes play.  The political and social satire is gone, the sexual and scatological jokes are...
The Elysian
I'm not going to have kids to save the economy Not on my list of reasons to have children.
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
The Innocent And The Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time ...
6 months ago
The American Scholar
Kyung Kim Far over the misty mountains The post Kyung Kim appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The Elysian
Democrats Need a Mamdani-Type to Win If you're still talking about his rent freeze and grocery policies, you're missing the point.
a week ago
The American Scholar
Paige Ledom Out of the ordinary The post Paige Ledom appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The American Scholar
Winter Sun The post Winter Sun appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
8 months ago
The Marginalian
Comet & Star: A Cosmic Fable about the Rhythms and Consolations of Friendship People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the common gravitational center is strong enough, they return, they stay. Sometimes they travel on. But they change us all the same. The great consolation of the cosmic order is the...
Astral Codex Ten
It's Still Easier To Imagine The End Of The World Than The End Of Capitalism Responding to a recent essay on wealth inequality in a post-singularity economy
6 months ago
The American Scholar
The Source The post The Source appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
Ben-Edit
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
It's Fun to Do Things with Care
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
60 kHz
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2024 A man sets out to draw the world.
6 months 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
14
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Lonely Funeral of Your Speech' Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely...
5 months ago
16
5 months ago
Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely in the history of English literature, at least as reported by the not-always-reliable John Aubrey. It’s absurd but if true it helps beatify the author of The Advancement of Learning...
The American Scholar
Terra Do Queixo The post Terra Do Queixo appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
Consummated in Exile A new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances conveys the breadth of the 20th-century...
a year ago
54
a year ago
A new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances conveys the breadth of the 20th-century composer’s life’s journey The post Consummated in Exile appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
10
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...
✏️ Road to Mesa Good morning, light. I awoke early this morning, perched on a mesa cliff-side, surrounded by low...
over a year ago
12
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...
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...
8 months ago
18
8 months ago
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Are Not So Full of Evil As of Inanity' Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and Heraclitus.” The former is reputed to have been a misanthrope, perhaps a melancholic. The latter was known as “the laughing philosopher.”  The essayist begins by weighing the importance...
The Marginalian
What Birds Dream About: The Evolution of REM and How We Practice the Possible in Our Sleep "It may be that in REM, this gloaming between waking consciousness and the unconscious, we practice...
a year ago
93
a year ago
"It may be that in REM, this gloaming between waking consciousness and the unconscious, we practice the possible into the real... It may be that we evolved to dream ourselves into reality — a laboratory of consciousness that began in the bird brain."
Ben Borgers
5 Pages a Day
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Annie Dillard on Unselfconsciousness Walking through the white-walled gallery at the graduation show of one of New York’s most esteemed...
a month ago
22
a month ago
Walking through the white-walled gallery at the graduation show of one of New York’s most esteemed art schools, between beautiful young people with Instagram faces, I was struck to see project after project take up as its subject the least durable, most illusory aspect of human...
The American Scholar
Lingua Obscura Laura Spinney on the spread of Proto-Indo-European The post Lingua Obscura appeared first on The...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Laura Spinney on the spread of Proto-Indo-European The post Lingua Obscura appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Founders will get much richer by exiting to employees This is how we create a wave of employee ownership.
10 months ago
Ben Borgers
Parking Tickets Wrapped 2024
5 months ago
The Marginalian
Insomnia and the Secret Life of Ideas: Kafka on the Relationship Between Sleeplessness and... Where we go when we go to sleep and why we go there is one of the great mysteries of the mind. Why...
4 months ago
38
4 months ago
Where we go when we go to sleep and why we go there is one of the great mysteries of the mind. Why the mind at times refuses to go there, despite the pleading and bargaining of its conscious owner, is a greater mystery still. We know that ever since REM evolved in the bird brain,...
This Space
39 Books: 1986 In my second year of reading, I read four novels by DM Thomas, beginning with his most famous, The...
a year ago
46
a year ago
In my second year of reading, I read four novels by DM Thomas, beginning with his most famous, The White Hotel, in the edition below with its very 1980s cover design. I look at the single-word titles of the others and can remember absolutely nothing about them. Both the title...
Josh Thompson
Cones, Coning, and Fixing Junctions, And How And Why “Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty This post is probably best...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
“Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty This post is probably best viewed on desktop, with some links opening new tabs, viewed, closed, and then this post returned to. There’s a lot of videos farther down, some of them are tiktoks (sorry) and some of...
The Marginalian
Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and... The most moving story of self-sacrifice in the history of science.
over a year ago
sbensu
The battlefield where arguments fight A lot of speech is about convincing others of what type of arguments have merit
a year ago
Steven Scrawls
Word Rot Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been faced in some form by someone who came before you. That person may have already shared the story of that challenge, and that story might have melded with other tales to form collective...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Myth of “Do What You Love” The most striking point, to me, from Tokumitsu’s book is how easily the myth of ’do what you love’...
10 months ago
11
10 months ago
The most striking point, to me, from Tokumitsu’s book is how easily the myth of ’do what you love’ cracks when you press on it. The underlying message of such a myth, she writes, is that ‘each individual’s specialness will guide him or her to work that he or she enjoys and that...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 4 - It was an eerie, desolate night. At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three big changes hit The Story of the Stone...
6 months ago
66
6 months ago
At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three big changes hit The Story of the Stone (c. 1760 / 1791).  First, David Hawkes, the original translator of the Penguin edition, dies; John Minford finishes the job.  Second, the author of the novel, Cao Xueqin, dies,...
ribbonfarm
Going Sessile One of the biggest changes in my personality with middle age is that I no longer really enjoy travel...
a year ago
16
a year ago
One of the biggest changes in my personality with middle age is that I no longer really enjoy travel beyond local weekend getaways. Almost no destination has a pain/novelty ratio that makes it worth it. On the one hand, I’ve traveled enough that few places hold the promise of...
Josh Thompson
Setting up for 'SQL Queries for Mere Mortals' This tweet is from… a while ago. Turns out I didn’t dig into this book, because the pace at Turing...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
This tweet is from… a while ago. Turns out I didn’t dig into this book, because the pace at Turing didn’t allow for a few weeks of thinking just about SQL. yes, I'm digging into sql to better my AR skills, and ultimately whatever I need to use next. pic.twitter.com/UhjyGKv1FQ —...
Wuthering...
The sophists and their rehabilitation - they clearly cause the ruin and corruption of their... I have been pursuing the sophists, the great antagonists of Socrates and Plato.  Minimized for...
over a year ago
52
over a year ago
I have been pursuing the sophists, the great antagonists of Socrates and Plato.  Minimized for centuries in the history of philosophy as, following Plato (but not Socrates), hucksters, they, or some of them, are now taken seriously as an intermediate step between the cosmological...
Steven Scrawls
Space to Play Space to Play I remember childhood as the slow advance of a great laboring Seriousness. When I was...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
Space to Play I remember childhood as the slow advance of a great laboring Seriousness. When I was in middle school, an awareness began to settle on me that great beings known as “colleges” watched from afar; by high school I understood that I ought to order my life to be...
The Marginalian
Owl Lake: A Vintage Treasure from Japanese Artist Keizaburo Tejima That we will never know what it is like to be another — another person, another creature — is one of...
a month ago
16
a month ago
That we will never know what it is like to be another — another person, another creature — is one of the most exasperating things in life, but also one of the most humbling, the most catalytic to our creative energies: the great calibrator of our certainties, the ultimate...
This Space
The disaster of writing: My Weil by Lars Iyer "When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone...
a year ago
35
a year ago
"When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone starts to ring" says the blurb to her recent book subtitled Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster, and goes on to report rapturous praise from critics and...
The Marginalian
Into the Blue Beyond: William Beebe’s Dazzling Account of Becoming the First Human Being to See the... "It was stranger than any imagination could have conceived... an indefinable translucent blue quite...
a year ago
The American Scholar
The One Who Got Away The post The One Who Got Away appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
My Takeaways From AI 2027 ...
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Stunning Century-Old Illustrations of Tibetan Fairy Tales from the Artist Who Created Bambi Soulful art from stories that speak "to the childhood of all times and all races."
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Lynn And IQ ...
5 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ May in the Mojave Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Hot and Cold The post Hot and Cold appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Something in You Hungers for Clarity: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Writing “Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in...
6 months ago
64
6 months ago
“Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in these civilized times, is carried on,” Mary Shelley wrote in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars that laid the template for the colonialist power structure of the modern world, in an...
Escaping Flatland
On mentors What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have...
a year ago
23
a year ago
What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have that privilege?
Steven Scrawls
Care doesn't scale Care Doesn’t Scale I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned children. She’d...
8 months ago
29
8 months ago
Care Doesn’t Scale I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned children. She’d alternate with her coworkers spending 24 hours at a time living with the kids, effectively acting as their parent. The children, unsurprisingly, had a lot of trauma and so her job...
Astral Codex Ten
The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh Sorry, you can only get drugs when there's a drug shortage.
3 months ago
The Marginalian
The Power of a Thin Skin "To be thin-skinned is to feel keenly, to perceive things that might go unseen, unnoticed, that...
a year ago
27
a year ago
"To be thin-skinned is to feel keenly, to perceive things that might go unseen, unnoticed, that others might prefer not to notice."
Wuthering...
Languages and literature - Finnegans Wake becomes unbeurrable from age More keys.  As Anna Livia Plurabelle says or thinks or dreams at the very end of Finnegans...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
More keys.  As Anna Livia Plurabelle says or thinks or dreams at the very end of Finnegans Wake, “The keys to.”  She is falling asleep so she unfortunately does not finish the sentence.  Some keys to the Wake: languages, literature, and themes. Languages In “Pierre Menard, Author...
The Marginalian
Look Up: The Illustrated Story of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, Who Laid the Groundwork for... How a brilliant woman rose against the tide of her time to fathom the mysteries of space.
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Between Memory and Hope The love poetry of Anthony Walton The post Between Memory and Hope appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
12
4 months ago
The love poetry of Anthony Walton The post Between Memory and Hope appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Music at 20%
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Focus: One Thing at a Time The pressure to be working on more than one thing at a time is enormous. This pressure comes from no...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
The pressure to be working on more than one thing at a time is enormous. This pressure comes from no one but me. And before I dismiss this tendency as “proof that I work too hard”, I must take another tact. It comes from a need to satisfy my ego. It is much easier to say “I did...
The American Scholar
A Story for Christmas The post A Story for Christmas appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The Marginalian
Some Blessings to Begin with It is good, I feel, to begin a new year, or a new day, with a little reservoir of gladness. Here are...
6 months ago
55
6 months ago
It is good, I feel, to begin a new year, or a new day, with a little reservoir of gladness. Here are some gladnesses I have gathered, and two new bird divinations I have made, as a conscious way of consecrating our days with the blessed fact that we weren’t promised any of this —...
The Marginalian
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating: An Uncommon Meditation on Presence and the Aperture of Wonder "Survival often depends on a specific focus: a relationship, a belief, or a hope balanced on the...
a year ago
The American Scholar
Queen of the Night Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark The post Queen of the Night appeared...
9 months ago
69
9 months ago
Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark The post Queen of the Night appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ All good things... Day 27: Oct 6, 2023 — As I drift off to sleep, I smell fire. I drowsily brush this off, equating it...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Day 27: Oct 6, 2023 — As I drift off to sleep, I smell fire. I drowsily brush this off, equating it to a possible nearby camper who ignores “No campfire” signs. The tent flap remains open, allowing for ventilation and for keeping overnight condensation to a minimum. In the middle...
This Space
A mighty contagious absence, part two On submission and resistance to AI-generated literature   To great writers, finished works weigh...
a month ago
20
a month ago
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 Marginalian
Trust, Betrayal, and the Nexus of Mathematics and Morality: The Prisoner’s Dilemma Animated Illuminating the pitfalls of the mind in felt and gingerbread.
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Maira Kalman on How to Live with Remorse and Make of It a Portal of Creative Vitality Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession...
a year ago
41
a year ago
Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession of some faculty, we have been humbled otherwise: Language, it turns out, is not ours alone, nor is the use of tools, nor is music. Elephants grieve, octopuses remember and...
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
27
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ This Is What We Have To Lose Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately forward into severity and decline. It’s too late for some aspects but not too late to avoid some of the worst aspects. The fires, the smoke, and the record-high temperatures that...
Ben Borgers
Meaningful Conversation
over a year ago
Wuthering...
The appeal of Septology as religious fiction - the urge, inexplicably, to pray - because it helps!... Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional punctuation, and temporal shifts, meaning the painter Asle is sometimes thinking about the present and sometimes about the past.  These are all old moves, old techniques.  I was a...
Josh Thompson
Denver.rb meetup notes Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App Denver.rb Monthly Meetup...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App Denver.rb Monthly Meetup @WeWork, Feb 12, 2018 We talked about performance profiling! Here’s the slides, on Dropbox I’m working on going deeper on the topic of Rails performance. I’ve got a lot more on the...
The Elysian
A self-governing forest Terra0 thinks nature should become economically independent.
a week ago
Josh Thompson
Setting up Application Performance Monitoring in DataDog in your Rails App When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work through things in excruciating detail. You might find this to be a little too in-depth, or you might appreciate the detail. Either way, if you want a step-by-step guide, this should do...
The American Scholar
“The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell appeared first on The...
9 months ago
62
9 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Between Encyclopedia and Fairy Tale: The Wondrous Birds and Reptiles of 18th-Century Artist Dorothea... Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or...
9 months ago
67
9 months ago
Imagine a world of constant wars and deadly plagues, a world without eyeglasses, bicycles, or sanitation. Imagine being a gifted child in that world, knowing you are born into a body that will never be granted the basic rights of citizenship in any country, into a mind that will...
Ben Borgers
Is Advice Flawed?
over a year ago
The American Scholar
The Writing on the Wall Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The Writing on the Wall appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Justice Worker Rebecca Sandefur’s mission is to provide help to tens of millions of Americans in solving their...
a month ago
7
a month ago
Rebecca Sandefur’s mission is to provide help to tens of millions of Americans in solving their legal problems The post The Justice Worker appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 2014 One could say that Mallarmé, through an extraordinary effort of asceticism, opened an abyss in...
a year ago
90
a year ago
One could say that Mallarmé, through an extraordinary effort of asceticism, opened an abyss in himself where his awareness, instead of losing itself, survives and grasps its solitude in a desperate clarity. This is from The Silence of Mallarmé, an essay in Blanchot's first...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And For It Does So Dearly Pay' Some wartime casualties are time-released. Death is deferred. In his new collection, That Mad...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Some wartime casualties are time-released. Death is deferred. In his new collection, That Mad Game (Scienter Press, 2025), R.L. Barth devotes three poems to a civilian, the war correspondent Albert W. Vinson, who wrote about him leading a patrol of Marines in Vietnam in 1968. The...
This Space
"And no real fate" – reading in the interval A sportswriter on the radio said that the lack of football in covid lockdown has disrupted the...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
A sportswriter on the radio said that the lack of football in covid lockdown has disrupted the rhythm of the lives of those who follow the sport. The word stuck in my mind. Does rhythm differ from routine? When a routine is broken, there is an interval of confusion and anxiety,...
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
18
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...
ribbonfarm
Ribbonfarm is Retiring After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve...
8 months ago
28
8 months ago
After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve decided to officially fully retire this blog. The ribbonfarm.com domain and all links will remain active, but there will be no new content after November 13th, 2024, which happens to be...
The Marginalian
The Whole of It Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form of living against it and not with it — the pain of loss, aching for what has been and no longer is; the pain of longing, aching for what could be but is not yet and may never be;...
The Marginalian
How People Change: Psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis on the Essence of Freedom and the Two Elements of... "We create ourselves. The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change."
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Twilight Of The Edgelords Should edgy heterodox centrists accept some of the blame for Trump?
2 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 2017 The list of books piles up, thirty-three now, and I'm reading fewer and fewer novels. Not through...
a year ago
61
a year ago
The list of books piles up, thirty-three now, and I'm reading fewer and fewer novels. Not through choice, but so little of what's new appeals. Instead, this year I read and reread books like Peter Handke's To Duration and Once Again for Thucydides, both of which escape helpful...
Escaping Flatland
An essay in which my friend feels stuck and I suggest relaxing some constraints The short version is that my friend, in my opinion, thinks about what he wants in a too constrained...
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
year 1
over a year ago
This Space
Favourite books 2021 If such things matter, and they don't, my book of the year is Peter Holm Jensen’s The Moment. As I...
over a year ago
45
over a year ago
If such things matter, and they don't, my book of the year is Peter Holm Jensen’s The Moment. As I wrote in April, it’s one in which the writer seeks “a modest, self-effacing place within the intersection of time and eternity” and can be read again and again for this reason, as...
The American Scholar
Acting Out One tortuous journey from stage to screen The post Acting Out appeared first on The American...
a year ago
54
a year ago
One tortuous journey from stage to screen The post Acting Out appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs ...
2 months ago
Ben Borgers
First Name Usernames
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Please read the Roman plays with me (although not all of them) - Plautus, Terence, Seneca Roman plays, a sampling, readalong #1. Fresh off the Greek plays, I want to revisit some of the...
over a year ago
79
over a year ago
Roman plays, a sampling, readalong #1. Fresh off the Greek plays, I want to revisit some of the surviving Roman plays to remind myself what they are like.  Twenty-six comedies and ten tragedies have survived.  I read about half of them long ago and plan to reread fewer than...
The Marginalian
Love and the Sacred "I did not know what love was until I encountered one that kept opening and opening and opening."
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Claude Fights Back ...
6 months ago
This Space
Notes from overground Seventeen years ago my copy of Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land was delayed in the post and...
a year ago
55
a year ago
Seventeen years ago my copy of Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land was delayed in the post and arrived long after the novel had been reviewed in all the big newspapers so, instead of riding the wave of publication, I was dragged under by its backwash. I had to answer a question...
Blog -...
Book Review - Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 2019 Edition I don’t anticipate giving many perfect ratings, but this book is a rare gem – a captivating...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I don’t anticipate giving many perfect ratings, but this book is a rare gem – a captivating page-turner packed full of aha moments. The authors have woven together decades of personal research and experience in the field of intimate relationships to create a classic...
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Review October 2016 Review This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November. I...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
October 2016 Review This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November. I had three goals for October, as of about 12 days ago: October goals: Programming I wanted to finish a certain Rails Tutorial, and move on to the next one. This project I made zero...
This Space
The Lascaux Notebooks by Jean-Luc Champerret Lascaux, a placename standing for the abyssal revelation of the cave paintings discovered there...
over a year ago
74
over a year ago
Lascaux, a placename standing for the abyssal revelation of the cave paintings discovered there after millennia in darkness, and Notebooks, suggesting a private endeavour, preparation, a work to come. While neither is secret as such, neither was meant for the light. Two intrigues...
Ben Borgers
October 5th, 1582
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Seeing people clearly Head of people operations for the entire friend group
a year 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
55
8 months ago
Milk Drop Coronet, an ultra-high-speed photograph of the splash of a drop of milk, Harold Edgerton, 1957
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
19
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...
Ben Borgers
Tufts Meal Plans Are a Scam
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'What a Delight in Being a Discoverer!' The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and introduced by Geoffrey Grigson, had not been checked out by another patron (hardly surprising) and should be on the shelf. I couldn’t find it. Not a good sign. That could mean the...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorhpses, Canto 6 - the sexual assaults - Because the lewdness of the Gods was so blazed... Back to Ovid. First, I have just begun Paul Barolsky’s Ovid and the Metamorphoses of Modern Art...
a year ago
43
a year ago
Back to Ovid. First, I have just begun Paul Barolsky’s Ovid and the Metamorphoses of Modern Art from Boticelli to Picasso (2014), a work of art history about Ovid written in the spirit of Ovid.  The book is of the highest interest, and is a long way from the catalogue of...
The Marginalian
How to Be a Stone: Three Poems for Trusting Time If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a mountain and listen to the conversation between eons encoded in each stripe of rock. Walk a beach and comb your fingers through the golden dust that was once a mountain. Pick up a...
The American Scholar
“how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers appeared first on The...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Hint #3 I'm publishing a new print collection in one week.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
A Tender Illustrated Celebration of the Many Languages of Love That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and...
a year ago
33
a year ago
That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and sorrows to another — this is the great miracle of being alive together. The object of human communication is not the exchange of information but the exchange of understanding. If we...
The Marginalian
What Rises from the Ruins: Katherine Anne Porter on the Power of the Artist and the Function of Art... "We understand very little of what is happening to us at any given moment."
a year ago
The Marginalian
I Touched the Sun: A Tender Illustrated Parable About How to Find and Bear Your Inner Light “One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives...
a year ago
62
a year ago
“One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light,” James Baldwin wrote in one of his finest, least known essays. In his exquisite memoir of the search for inner light, the blind resistance hero...
The American Scholar
“water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Habits Take Preparation Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to quickly settle into a routine that makes sense for both of us. For example - I work for a company in Boston. While I could keep local working hours (Mountain Time) I prefer to...
The Elysian
Going from research to writing Our third "research with me" session.
4 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Knowledge workers Perhaps it’s even better to acknowledge that there never were any knowledge workers. There have only...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
Perhaps it’s even better to acknowledge that there never were any knowledge workers. There have only ever been workers. — Mandy Brown Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The 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...
5 months ago
59
5 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.”...
Wuthering...
Some lesser works of Sōseki and Tanizaki - deep in the earth directly beneath Lady Kikyō’s toilet Dolce Bellezza is running her 17th Japanese Literature Challenge.  Amazing, well done, etc. I read...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Dolce Bellezza is running her 17th Japanese Literature Challenge.  Amazing, well done, etc. I read some short works for it, which I will pile up here: three short works by Natsume Sōseki, collected in a Tuttle volume that looks like it is titled Ten Nights of Dream Hearing...
Josh Thompson
Notes from 'Why We Sleep' I first read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams about two years ago. It...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I first read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams about two years ago. It immediately led me to prioritize sleep over almost everything else. Most of us don’t get enough sleep, and are worse for it. Usually when the topic of sleep comes up, I say Hey, there’s...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dookie Demastered THE LANDMARK 1994 ALBUM. 15 TRACKS DEMASTERED IN 15 FORMATS. THE WAY IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE...
8 months ago
15
8 months ago
THE LANDMARK 1994 ALBUM. 15 TRACKS DEMASTERED IN 15 FORMATS. THE WAY IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE HEARD. These are all brilliant. I'm partial to the wax cylinder version of When I Come Around, my favorite track from Dookie. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the Present Value of Rent Flow this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft document Inspiration comes from many places, but most strongly it draws heavily from Order Without Design. I’ve quoted in depth two pages below, but there is many other sections of the book...
This Space
39 Books: 1991 One the first books I found in a bookshop* upon moving to Brighton was Rosalind Belben's novel Is...
a year ago
47
a year ago
One the first books I found in a bookshop* upon moving to Brighton was Rosalind Belben's novel Is Beauty Good. I had seen it two years earlier chosen in a newspaper books of the year listing alongside Jacques Roubaud's Le Grand Incendie de Londres and Thomas Bernhard's Old...
Wuthering...
The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox - counting the pages, he was quite terrified at the number,... Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through the 18th century, so she read,...
6 months ago
49
6 months ago
Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through the 18th century, so she read, obviously, The Female Quixote (1852) by Charlotte Lennox.  I had not read it, so I trailed along. An archetypal novelistic heroine, young Arabella has had her brain addled by novels: From...
Wuthering...
Let's read Ovid's Metamorphoses! And perhaps more. Who would like to read Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE) with me?  We have had some discussion of this...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Who would like to read Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE) with me?  We have had some discussion of this good idea, and I feel I am up to it now.  Up to writing about it. Metamorphoses is a compendium of Greek myths that feature transformation, which turns out to be hundreds of pages...
The Marginalian
Oliver Sacks on Despair and the Meaning of Life "The meaning of life... clearly has to do with love — what and whom and how one can love."
7 months ago
The Marginalian
The Last Wonder: D.H. Lawrence on Death and the Best Lifelong Preparation for It "Know thyself, and that thou art mortal. But know thyself, denying that thou art mortal."
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Customer Rewards Programs
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Drift Right now it is April 18 and I am walking along the steep coast at the peninsula on the Northeastern...
2 months ago
13
2 months ago
Right now it is April 18 and I am walking along the steep coast at the peninsula on the Northeastern corner of our island.
The Marginalian
The Strength to Remember and the Strength to Forget: James Baldwin on What Makes a Hero “Let everything happen to you,” wrote Rilke, “Beauty and terror.” It is not easy, this simple...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
“Let everything happen to you,” wrote Rilke, “Beauty and terror.” It is not easy, this simple surrender. The courage and vulnerability it takes make it nothing less than an act of heroism. Most of our cowardices and cruelties, most of the suffering we endure and inflict, stem...
ribbonfarm
Harberger Tax It’s always nice to see trails of thought connect up. An idea I first encountered and really liked...
a year ago
21
a year ago
It’s always nice to see trails of thought connect up. An idea I first encountered and really liked in a 2014 Steve Randy Waldman (interfluidity) post has apparently since acquired a name and a more extended provenance. Waldman’s post, Tax price, not value, presents the idea as a...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ There's a Banksy in Park City, Utah Day 4: Sept 13, 2023 — Yesterday’s overstimulation resonates throughout the night, so neither of us...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 4: Sept 13, 2023 — Yesterday’s overstimulation resonates throughout the night, so neither of us sleep well. A truck with an RV trailer shows up at 2:30 a.m. While they are on the other end of the campground, there’s enough noise to make me poke my head out of the tent. Given...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The anatomy of Andy Spade's style You don’t have to spend a lot to look good; good taste isn’t bound by price. Spade is a testiment to...
6 months ago
30
6 months ago
You don’t have to spend a lot to look good; good taste isn’t bound by price. Spade is a testiment to this, while he’s a successful businessman. He sticks to his affordable, all-American classics. I'm somewhat entering my uniform years. I've come around to clothes that feel...
The American Scholar
In the Mushroom True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business The post In...
7 months ago
29
7 months ago
True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business The post In the Mushroom appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
From Cells to Souls: The Poetic Science of How the Brain Became The making of our densely networked crucible of thought and tenderness.
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Site Nonsite: Live at Delia's Third Happening Months of work went into this show, resulting in six fresh arrangements and two new songs, and I was...
10 months ago
12
10 months ago
Months of work went into this show, resulting in six fresh arrangements and two new songs, and I was unexpectedly happy with everything captured on the night. This document feels like a fitting conclusion to the first chapter of Site Nonsite. — Simon Collison A real treat for the...
Ben Borgers
Winter break project list [2024]
6 months ago
sbensu
Semantic gaps Swedish has a specific word for each of the four grandparents: mormor, morfar, farmor, farfar....
a year ago
15
a year ago
Swedish has a specific word for each of the four grandparents: mormor, morfar, farmor, farfar. English doesn’t. So when you mention your 'grandma' to a Swede, they are left wondering 'which grandma?' even if it is not relevant to the story. That is a semantic gap.
The Marginalian
Do Not Spare Yourself The only thing more dangerous than wanting to save another person — a dangerous desire too often...
5 months ago
104
5 months ago
The only thing more dangerous than wanting to save another person — a dangerous desire too often mistaken for love — is wanting to save yourself, to spare yourself the disappointment and heartbreak and loss inseparable from being a creature with hopes and longings constantly...
The Elysian
Week 3: The dream pitch
a year ago
Josh Thompson
A Small Goal is Better than a Grand Plan We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day, when I’m rich (goal one), location independent (goal two), and married to a fabulous woman (goal three), I will travel the world (goal four) while exploring my hobby of ___ (goal...
Blog -...
Book Review - Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant In the book Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant, author Roland Lazenby meticulously shares the...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
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...
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
36
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...
The American Scholar
Look Out! Why did it take so long to protect The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
The Wound Is the Gift: David Whyte on the Relationship Between Anxiety and Intimacy "Intimacy is presence magnified by our vulnerability, magnified by increasing proximity to the fear...
7 months ago
The Marginalian
Living Against Time: Virginia Woolf on Reaping the “Moments of Being” That Make You Who You Are In praise of "the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light."
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'For I Have Renounced Happiness' “Happiness is the search for happiness.”  I’m not so sure. My understanding is that there are no...
a month ago
12
a month ago
“Happiness is the search for happiness.”  I’m not so sure. My understanding is that there are no happy lives, only happy moments. Those moments seem to be the byproduct of right living. A life dedicated fulltime to achieving happiness is likely to be filled with respites of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Yes, I'm Perfectly All Right' Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he...
2 months ago
145
2 months ago
Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he died last August in hospice. A reader asks about this, and I admit I blew it. For the last week or so of his life, Ken was unconscious, occasionally moaning when the nurses shifted...
Steven Scrawls
Stone Hands Reaching Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself touching a stone forearm. It’s cold, of course, and it’s coarser than skin, but tracing along the arms is enough to bring back memories of being comforted, of being held, when I was a...
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...
a year ago
20
a year ago
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I visited the city (on Kindle, so I didn’t realize when I started that it’s 600 pages plus another 250 odd notes). It’s dense and absorbing and I’ll probably do a reflections post...
The American Scholar
Once in a Lifetime Jonathan Gould on how Talking Heads transformed rock music The post Once in a Lifetime appeared...
a week ago
10
a week ago
Jonathan Gould on how Talking Heads transformed rock music The post Once in a Lifetime appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Just When You Thought It Wasn’t Safe … How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers The post Just When You Thought It...
a year ago
75
a year ago
How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers The post Just When You Thought It <em>Wasn’t</em> Safe … appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
25
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 American Scholar
On (Middle-Class) Frugality Does cutting costs mean robbing oneself of life’s small delights? The post On (Middle-Class)...
a month ago
11
a month ago
Does cutting costs mean robbing oneself of life’s small delights? The post On (Middle-Class) Frugality appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“The Horses” by Ted Hughes Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Horses” by Ted Hughes appeared first on The American...
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'You Should Take a Book of Poetry' “The Brains Trust” was a BBC radio show popular in the nineteen-forties and -fifties. A panel of...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
“The Brains Trust” was a BBC radio show popular in the nineteen-forties and -fifties. A panel of “experts” – among them Desmond MacCarthy, Kenneth Clark and Rose Macaulay – would answer questions submitted by listeners. The U.S. had similar radio programs at the time, such as...
Ben Borgers
War Room — using the native date picker
over a year ago
The Perry Bible...
Us The post Us appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
8 months ago
Blog -...
Book Review - Open Open by Andre Agassi is a narrative tour de force. I literally could not put it down. I usually...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Open by Andre Agassi is a narrative tour de force. I literally could not put it down. I usually have four to six books on the go at any time, but all of them were put on pause for the day and a half it took me to devour this book.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Like an Occupying Army' Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to...
4 months ago
28
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...
The Marginalian
John Gardner on the Key to Self-Renewal Across Life and the Art of Making Rather Than Finding... "The potentialities you develop to the full come as the result of an interplay between you and...
a year ago
Blog -...
Book Review - Codependent No More With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago,...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago, Codependent No More is a startling, powerful book that has touched the lives of so very many.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Why Restaurants Are So Expensive Now, According to Chefs and Restaurant Owners That’s still not quite enough. Because there’s a cultural expectation in America around how much...
9 months ago
17
9 months ago
That’s still not quite enough. Because there’s a cultural expectation in America around how much Vietnamese food should cost, especially if it’s not presented as fine dining. Right now, our bowl of pho is $26. We use chicken from Joyce Farms, and our broth takes three days. But...
The American Scholar
“The Nakedness of Woman” The post “The Nakedness of Woman” appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 How to Monetize a Blog Regardless, if this is the game, we can still be its players. Hats off to you. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Visit...
9 months ago
9
9 months ago
Regardless, if this is the game, we can still be its players. Hats off to you. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Marginalian
The Other Significant Others: Living and Loving Outside the Confines of Conventional Friendship and... "While we weaken friendships by expecting too little of them, we undermine romantic relationships by...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Back in the saddle (of writing) Background It’s been a hell of a year. I’ve got about 10,000 things I’ve wanted to write about, and...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Background It’s been a hell of a year. I’ve got about 10,000 things I’ve wanted to write about, and have not gotten around to any of them. Here’s my various top-level reasons for not writing: what I want to write about feels too complicated to express easily/coherently I feel...
Ben Borgers
Gamelan Music
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Transcending the Glass Ceiling Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their due The post Transcending the Glass Ceiling appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Dark Sky
over a year ago