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sbensu
Hiring from Big Tech Some brief notes about the subject
a year ago
Josh Thompson
How to never accidentally click Twitter's "Moments" again (and to block anything else on the... Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying? Most people find it...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying? Most people find it annoying. Here’s how to get rid of Twitter’s “Moments” forever: 0. Be won over to using an ad blocker on the internet. They don’t block just ads, but malicious scripts and...
The Elysian
The unbearable necessity of being online On loving and loathing the internet as an artist and why we need to be here anyway.
a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I Read in August 2023 As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted to more important things.  Plenty of...
a year ago
422
a year ago
As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted to more important things.  Plenty of energy to read, though. With a respite in September, I should soon be able to write a bit on the Greek philosophers I have been reading.  The Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics work...
Wuthering...
Read and To Read, in 2024 and 2025 What did I read in 2024? The best book I read last year was Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE).  Best...
5 months ago
68
5 months ago
What did I read in 2024? The best book I read last year was Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE).  Best books, really, in translations by Arthur Golding and Charles Martin.  My “best book of the year” answer will never be interesting.  America’s librarian Nancy Pearl asked, somewhere on...
Escaping Flatland
Thoughts on agency If anyone is in the mood for a video call, I would like to get a few of you together on Saturday at...
a year ago
87
a year ago
If anyone is in the mood for a video call, I would like to get a few of you together on Saturday at 6 pm CET (9 am PST). Like last time, I’ll prepare a few questions (probably relating to today’s post since that is top of mind) but mostly we’ll just talk about whatever comes up....
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 358 ...
7 months ago
The American Scholar
“The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first on...
a year ago
44
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first on The American Scholar.
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction What if our stories explore questions not because those...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction What if our stories explore questions not because those questions are interesting, but because those questions are easier to respond to than the alternatives? Trope: The Chosen One What’s the shallow, wish-fulfillment version of...
The Elysian
Let's read the Terra Ignota series together Our summer reading is Ada Palmer's feat of utopian worldbuilding.
12 months ago
Ben Borgers
Did MCAS Matter?
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Facing the Facts An antiquated take on antiquity The post Facing the Facts appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
What problem should you be working on now? How to filter problems worth solving from problems worth quitting?
a month ago
This Space
Further in the opposite direction Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal...
a year ago
52
a year ago
Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal themselves to be human-all-too-human fictions that lack divine legitimation. Religion is supposed to wither away. But this itself...can be understood as a religious claim: the very...
Josh Thompson
Robert Moses - The Most Important Person You've Never Heard Of this was originally posted a few years ago, republishing as a blog post as I organize an...
a year ago
17
a year ago
this was originally posted a few years ago, republishing as a blog post as I organize an increasingly large number of links and resources here. Here’s a big dumping ground for some resources on robert moses I’ve got floating around. Obviously, this has grown to an unwieldy sizy...
Anecdotal Evidence
On a Phrase by Jane Greer “. . . I pounce on quiet when I find it.”  Do you hear that sound? A low vibrato in the distance?...
a month ago
15
a month ago
“. . . I pounce on quiet when I find it.”  Do you hear that sound? A low vibrato in the distance? Sometimes it swells and the windows seem to rattle. It’s a pedal point reminiscent of hornets in a jar, but less reassuring. It’s the collective drone of chatter, of casually...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The New Design A few times a week, we get emails from students and young designers looking for an internship or...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
A few times a week, we get emails from students and young designers looking for an internship or full-time opportunities at the studio. We’re not quite ready in terms of needing outside help, so these are unsolicited inquiries. We don’t make any mention of not accepting them as...
ribbonfarm
Stack Map of the World I’ve been buried neck deep in work stuff this week, but I did find time to make this stack diagram...
a year ago
20
a year ago
I’ve been buried neck deep in work stuff this week, but I did find time to make this stack diagram of the world, inspired by the xkcd Dependency cartoon. Randall Munroe draws better than me, but in my favor, I use more colors. Did you know most of the high-purity quartz needed...
The Marginalian
The One Hundred Milliseconds Between the World and You: Oliver Sacks on Perception “If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as...
a month ago
9
a month ago
“If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” But we are finite creatures, in time and in space, and there is a limit to how much reality we can bear — evolution gave us consciousness so that we may sieve the...
The American Scholar
Reborn in the City of Light At a time when Paris was an incubator of modernism, a group of bold American women arrived to make...
10 months ago
40
10 months ago
At a time when Paris was an incubator of modernism, a group of bold American women arrived to make art out of their lives The post Reborn in the City of Light appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Double Rainbow All the Way Day 1: Apr 14, 2024 — “That’s not rain, that’s snow!” And it is. Fat raindrops transform into plump...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 1: Apr 14, 2024 — “That’s not rain, that’s snow!” And it is. Fat raindrops transform into plump disintegrating flakes on the windshield as we continue our ascent into Tehachapi and before we negotiate the namesake pass. The temperature display in the rig reads 36°F and is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Illumination of the Past' Despite the repellant spectacle of Allen Ginsburg, poetry as a career is not a guarantee of fame and...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
Despite the repellant spectacle of Allen Ginsburg, poetry as a career is not a guarantee of fame and fortune. One of our finest recent poets, Herbert Morris, is forgotten and was hardly remembered even during his life. He published six collections between 1978 and 2000 and died...
Josh Thompson
Three Levels of Competence Raise your hand if you’d like to be better at climbing. Yeah. Me too. I’ve spent an unusual amount...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Raise your hand if you’d like to be better at climbing. Yeah. Me too. I’ve spent an unusual amount of time working with beginners, to help them improve at climbing. I’ve also worked a lot with (what I would consider to be) intermediate climbers, so can get better. I’ve certainly...
The Marginalian
Walt Whitman on Owning Your Life At the bottom of the abyss between us is the hard fact that to be a person, a particular person, is...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
At the bottom of the abyss between us is the hard fact that to be a person, a particular person, is so profoundly different from what any other person can suppose. This is why one of the hardest learnings in life is that you cannot love — or scold, or coax, or palter — anyone out...
The Marginalian
A Whole of Parts: Philosopher R.L. Nettleship on Love, Death, and the Paradox of Personality "Death is self-surrender... Love is the consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender."
6 months ago
The American Scholar
Just Yesterday The post Just Yesterday appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Basecamp Talks to You
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Be More Alive: Hermann Hesse on Wonder and the Proper Aim of Education "While wandering down the path of wonder, I briefly escape the world of separation and enter the...
a year ago
The Marginalian
Dead Stars: Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s Stunning Love Poem to Life "We’ve come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love...
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Redefining Success It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought about writing something here almost every day, but here is why I didn’t: I want to produce “content” that is helpful and relevant to those who might read it. I felt like nothing I...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ No One Above the Law "Malaysia." I stood up, and maybe one or two other people did too. It wasn't like the large groups...
8 months ago
9
8 months ago
"Malaysia." I stood up, and maybe one or two other people did too. It wasn't like the large groups of newly minted American citizens from other countries announced, such as China, India, or the Philippines. But it was a moment I was proud of, and when my country of origin was...
ribbonfarm
The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5...
a year ago
18
a year ago
My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5 most successful memes) is featured in this cute little collectible book, The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet put together by Yancey Strickler (whom you may have heard of as the...
The Marginalian
The Science and Poetry of Anthotypes: Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium, Recreated in Hauntingly Beautiful... On September 20, 1845, the polymathic Scottish mathematician Mary Somerville — the woman for whom...
a year ago
68
a year ago
On September 20, 1845, the polymathic Scottish mathematician Mary Somerville — the woman for whom the word scientist was coined — sent a letter to the polymathic English astronomer John Herschel, who six years earlier had coined the word photography for the radical invention of...
The American Scholar
“The Pulley” by George Herbert Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Pulley” by George Herbert appeared first on The American...
9 months ago
73
9 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Pulley” by George Herbert appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2025 - Call For Organizers ...
4 months ago
The Elysian
Week 5: Write one (pitchable) think piece
a year ago
Wuthering...
Platonov's Chevengur - “But communism’s about to set in... Why am I finding everything so hard?” Another remarkable Russian novel finally made it into English last year, Andrey Platonov’s...
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
Another remarkable Russian novel finally made it into English last year, Andrey Platonov’s Chevengur, written in 1929 but not published until 1972, in Paris. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler have been translating Platonov for decades now, and this novel and the apparatus...
The Marginalian
An Almanac of Birds: Divinations for Uncertain Days I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously...
11 months ago
62
11 months ago
I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously underappreciated, is coming to love someone who loves it. As we enter each other’s worlds in love — whatever its shape or species — we double our way of seeing, broaden our way of...
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
22
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...
The Marginalian
200 Years of Solitude: Great Writers, Artists, and Scientists in Praise of the Creative and... There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows...
11 months ago
66
11 months ago
There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows free to speak. That space expands in solitude. To create anything — a poem, a painting, a theorem — is to find the voice in the silence that has something to say to the world. In...
This Space
A loss of problems Martin Amis' novels were among those I read when I began reading novels – one read what was being...
a year ago
22
a year ago
Martin Amis' novels were among those I read when I began reading novels – one read what was being talked about on television and in newspapers. Money was the first quickly followed by each and every one that preceded it, including the journalism in The Moronic Inferno, which I...
The Marginalian
Chance, Choice, and How to Claim Your Life Only a fool or an egomaniac would deny that chance shapes the vast majority of life. The time,...
2 months ago
14
2 months ago
Only a fool or an egomaniac would deny that chance shapes the vast majority of life. The time, place, culture, family, body, brain, and biochemistry we are born into, the people who cross our path, the accidents that befall us — these dwarf in consequence the sum total of our...
The American Scholar
Agent 37 The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The American Scholar
A Giant of a Man The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark The post A Giant...
8 months ago
38
8 months ago
The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark The post A Giant of a Man appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ And another one Day 24: Oct 3, 2023 — I awake after a restful slumber. The sleeping conditions were damn-near...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Day 24: Oct 3, 2023 — I awake after a restful slumber. The sleeping conditions were damn-near perfect: cool overnight temperatures and stillness in the air. We went to bed with a few options for the course of today, but it’s apparent to us we should settle in for an additional...
The American Scholar
The Rescuer In search of the Underground Railroad’s legendary conductor The post The Rescuer appeared first on...
a year ago
51
a year ago
In search of the Underground Railroad’s legendary conductor The post The Rescuer appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid
SXSW ’11 Memories are an interesting beast. I have certain core memories that are embedded deep in my mind....
2 months ago
11
2 months ago
Memories are an interesting beast. I have certain core memories that are embedded deep in my mind. The years I attended SXSW from 2007-2012 encompass some of those. In 2011, I shared a house with longtime partner-in-crime Scott Robbin, Jeff Skinner, and Sam Felder. We were off...
The Elysian
We’ve raised $50,000—now I’m writing a book! My vision for the future of capitalism has been greenlit. Now let’s make it a reality.
a month ago
The Marginalian
Don’t Waste Your Greening Life-Force: Hildegard’s Prophetic Enchanted Ecology The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and...
5 months ago
48
5 months ago
The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and the printing press have not been invented. Earth is the center of the universe, encircled by heavenly bodies whose motions are ministered by angels. Most people never live past...
The American Scholar
Camouflage The post Camouflage appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
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...
Josh Thompson
Monthly Review: November This is my second monthly review, and I’m hooked. I’ve thought this coming review frequently, but I...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
This is my second monthly review, and I’m hooked. I’ve thought this coming review frequently, but I thought about that as I was conducting my month. This proactive review is in line with Viktor Frankl’s admonition to “live every day as if it were your second chance to live it.”...
Escaping Flatland
Can we scale cultures that support learning? new essay in Asterisk
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
Hash Tables [explained for anyone]
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Meeting the Muse at the Edge of the Light: Poet Gary Snyder on Craftsmanship vs. Creative Force It is tempting, because we make everything we make with everything we are, to take our creative...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
It is tempting, because we make everything we make with everything we are, to take our creative potency for a personal merit. It is also tempting when we find ourselves suddenly impotent, as all artists regularly do, to blame the block on a fickle muse and rue ourselves abandoned...
The Elysian
Am I a Democrat or a Republican? The case for going label-less.
6 months ago
The American Scholar
“To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov appeared...
8 months ago
59
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Proofs Of God's Existence ...
4 months ago
The Perry Bible...
Please The post Please appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
11 months ago
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
83
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). ...
Astral Codex Ten
H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know Don't give your true love a partridge, turtledoves, or (especially) French hens
6 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 archives.design A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives. Visit...
10 months ago
9
10 months ago
A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Escaping Flatland
Morning ritual + reading recommendations
a year ago
The American Scholar
Verde Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense...
7 months ago
28
7 months ago
Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense the world anew The post Verde appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Blocks and Closures in Ruby Continuing on from yesterday’s post about method_missing, I’m moving on to a part of Ruby’s language...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Continuing on from yesterday’s post about method_missing, I’m moving on to a part of Ruby’s language that has been a bit of a mystery for me for quite some time. I’m still working through Metaprogramming in Ruby. It’s the concept of lambdas, procs, blocks, and more. I also hope...
Josh Thompson
How To Write A Letter of Recommendation for Yourself I meet regularly with early-career software developers. A few recurring meetings, 1x/week, plus...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I meet regularly with early-career software developers. A few recurring meetings, 1x/week, plus ad-hoc calls as needed with others. A question came up recently: My three-month internship is close to wrapping up. The Co-founder/CEO/lead developer of the consulting company I’m at...
This Space
39 Books: 2012 Of all the books in this series, this was the one I most wanted to write about and also the one I...
a year ago
96
a year ago
Of all the books in this series, this was the one I most wanted to write about and also the one I knew would be impossible to write about, at least in a couple of distracted hours. Imagine this: through mathematical calculation, close reading and literary detective work, a...
sbensu
Twitter's Sith and Jedi In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can...
a year ago
14
a year ago
In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can reach. But when they lean into hate, they lose their soul to it. Twitter offers the same bargain as the Force.
This Space
Dead Souls by Sam Riviere Even before one begins reading Sam Riviere’s first novel there is despondency as one registers that...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
Even before one begins reading Sam Riviere’s first novel there is despondency as one registers that the title is a duplication of the English translation of Nikolai Gogol’s Мёртвые души, the novel in which a character seeks to buy dead serfs from their owners but who have yet to...
Ben Borgers
Twitter Not Found
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Driven by Compression Progress Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and academic literature, as applied to somewhat practical-ish domains. These pages serve as a brief overview of a paper, and I’ll be able to link to this paper down the road when I what...
The American Scholar
“The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet appeared first on The...
10 months ago
70
10 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Waking Up Early 2.0 A few months ago, I wrote about waking up early. I tracked my progress for almost a month, and most...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
A few months ago, I wrote about waking up early. I tracked my progress for almost a month, and most of the days I woke up between 4:45 and 6:00. My “must be up by” time is 7:30a, so waking up more than an hour and a half early counts as a huge win. From mid-may until June 7, I...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 379 ...
2 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Piccalilli Front-end education for the real world. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
10 months ago
Wuthering...
Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and their Stoic self-help books - I shall not be afraid when my last hour... The curious thing about Stoicism is its long-lasting survival in the self-help genre, curious at...
a year ago
76
a year ago
The curious thing about Stoicism is its long-lasting survival in the self-help genre, curious at least until I read Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic (1st C.) several years ago and discovered that it was a self-help book, one of the founding self-help books.  The Meditations of...
The American Scholar
Woman in a Red Raincoat The post Woman in a Red Raincoat appeared first on The American Scholar.
11 months ago
The Elysian
Week 6: Examples of Pitches
a year ago
The American Scholar
Unbuilding the Mystery What might Indigenous spiritual practices have in common? The post Unbuilding the Mystery appeared...
a month ago
3
a month ago
What might Indigenous spiritual practices have in common? The post Unbuilding the Mystery appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Typing for Programmers If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I can press these magical little keys on this little metal box here, and make these words come out. If you’re reading these words, you don’t care how these words actually got on...
The American Scholar
“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on...
a year ago
96
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Everyone's A Based Post-Christian Vitalist Until The Grooming Gangs Show Up ...
5 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Four Years Gone My father passed away four years ago, on June 18. It was the day that Father's Day fell on that...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
My father passed away four years ago, on June 18. It was the day that Father's Day fell on that year. My father-in-law, Jen's dad, passed away 11 years ago on June 20th, on that respective year. It's a strange cosmic sign but not uncommon for our relationship where many signs and...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Pound, rub, pound It’s something like midnight. A four-and-a-half-pound senior Chihuahua is tucked into her blanket...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
It’s something like midnight. A four-and-a-half-pound senior Chihuahua is tucked into her blanket and snuggled up next to my left rib cage inside my sleeping bag. Jen is asleep beside us. It’s 35°F. We have myriad layers happening: Jen wears a down jacket inside her sleeping bag...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 367.5 ...
4 months ago
Wuthering...
Reading The Peony Pavilion with the teens in The Story of the Stone - That garden is a vast and... The teens living in the garden in the YA romantasy The Story of the Stone spend a lot of time...
5 months ago
41
5 months ago
The teens living in the garden in the YA romantasy The Story of the Stone spend a lot of time reading forbidden books, much older YA romantasys.  These books are all famous classical Chinese plays.  Cao Xueqin gives a couple of chapters early on to their reading, including a list...
Ben Borgers
It Does Have to Be Every Day
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Helina Metaferia An army of activists The post Helina Metaferia appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Pebble Is a Perfect Creature' My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry to say the psychologists and sociologists got their hands on it first, but there’s nothing new about so simple a human gesture. The word is adopted from the courtship rituals of...
Escaping Flatland
How to think in writing Part 1: The thought behind the thought
a year ago
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
79
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 356 ...
7 months ago
Ben Borgers
Thursday, January 13, 2022
over a year ago
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in stories and suggested that some stories might explore certain questions not because those questions are interesting, but because engaging with those questions allows the story to...
Josh Thompson
On Feedback Most of what makes us who we are is based on some sort of feedback obtained earlier in our life. By...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Most of what makes us who we are is based on some sort of feedback obtained earlier in our life. By my best estimation, there are two types of feedback: Explicit feedback , which comes in a little box labeled “this is feedback”, and is hard to miss. Implicit feedback , which is...
Josh Thompson
A 40 Hour Work Week Business Insider posted an article on why we have a 40 hour work week. The author blames big...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Business Insider posted an article on why we have a 40 hour work week. The author blames big business for why we’ve not dropped below 40 hours per week. He thinks that if America became less consumer-driven, our economy would collapse. He’s got the wrong starting assumptions...
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 4: Arrays, Hashes, and Nested Collections Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
The American Scholar
“Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight” by Galway Kinnell Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight” by...
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight” by Galway Kinnell appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Driving School Corruption
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Poco a Poco The post Poco a Poco appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Pic-nic and Polka' Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) was an English theologian, a learned man who amassed a library of more than 12,000 volumes. In 1828, Walter Savage Landor published the third volume of his Imaginary Conversations and included one titled “Archdeacon Hare and Walter Landor.” The...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Is Substack so Bad? All those readers that Substack shows you as a positive thing on your dashboard are worth very...
6 months ago
22
6 months ago
All those readers that Substack shows you as a positive thing on your dashboard are worth very little. Upon leaving Substack authors have found that users acquired via the Substack recommendation engine have higher churn than organic growth and are less likely to open your...
Astral Codex Ten
You Can Keep Having An Opinion Even When The Government Also Has It ...
2 months ago
The American Scholar
A Stronger Spine The post A Stronger Spine appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Bloodless Snippet of History' Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks,...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks, carnivorous plants, Dmitri Mendeleev and the periodic table, coins, electronics – one focus of interest after another. He wasn’t fickle or easily distracted by the next shiny thing....
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 355.5 ...
7 months ago
The Elysian
Should we create more US states? Inside the growing movement to redraw state lines, and why it might be better for liberals and...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Inside the growing movement to redraw state lines, and why it might be better for liberals and conservatives alike.
The American Scholar
The Patron Subjects Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings? The...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings? The post The Patron Subjects appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The...
11 months ago
57
11 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Tristan da Cunha” by Roy Campbell appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Towards Standardizing Place The difference between locations and places is an important nuance. Humans build out, demarcate, and...
10 months ago
12
10 months ago
The difference between locations and places is an important nuance. Humans build out, demarcate, and describe discrete venues and areas in space. The questions we ask only deal in coordinates because they have to; we’d rather ask questions about roads, paths, houses, stores,...
Josh Thompson
Related to Grief & Sadness & Supremacy Introduction this post is very drafty, but has been sitting around getting longer for a few weeks...
2 months ago
14
2 months ago
Introduction this post is very drafty, but has been sitting around getting longer for a few weeks now, so I’m simply posting now and will do some more rounds of cleanup, probably. I’d started writing some of this in a letter to a friend, then noticed that, with a little...
The Marginalian
Gary Snyder on How to Unbreak the World "What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
"What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands and minds."
The American Scholar
Lindsey Weber Relationships that define us The post Lindsey Weber appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Best Type of Bathroom Lock
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
"Deros And The Ur-Abduction" In Asterisk ...
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
"A delicate mix of chess... and bear wrestling" Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer to sport as “lead” climbing from here on out. Sorry, trad climbers). If someone is enjoying top roping, (or bouldering) why should they take on the work of learning to lead climb,...
Naz Hamid
The Abstraction Gap Bridging the design-development gap as AI rises. There’s a frustrating gap in how development...
2 months ago
12
2 months ago
Bridging the design-development gap as AI rises. There’s a frustrating gap in how development projects present themselves. What looks straightforward on GitHub — ‘just run this command!’ — quickly spirals into an odyssey of sudo permissions, package managers, and missing...
The Marginalian
Kinship in the Light of Conscience: Peter Kropotkin on the Crucial Difference Between Love,... “Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental...
9 months ago
57
9 months ago
“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental definition of solidarity — this tender recognition of our interdependence and fundamental kinship, deeper than sympathy, wider than love. Half a century after Whitman’s atomic...
The American Scholar
Celebrating an American Icon The post Celebrating an American Icon appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
The American Scholar
The Most Famous Unknown Artist David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight The post The Most Famous Unknown Artist appeared first on...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight The post The Most Famous Unknown Artist appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
On feeling connected generosity is potency
8 months ago
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
14
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...
This Space
39 Books: 1989 Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on TV and in newspapers, but in 1989 I read Alexander Stuart's The War Zone that did exactly that. It was later made into a controversial film. The only thing I remember of the...
The Marginalian
Albert Camus on How to Live Whole in a Broken World Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died...
a year ago
68
a year ago
Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died in a car crash with an unused train ticket to the same destination in his pocket. Just three years earlier, he had become the second-youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize, awarded...
The Elysian
We can terraform the Earth—not just Mars If we can revive a dead planet, we can revive our own.
3 weeks ago
This Space
39 Books: 1999 I've always preferred the Serpent's Tail edition of Pessoa's Book of Disquiet over the others...
a year ago
91
a year ago
I've always preferred the Serpent's Tail edition of Pessoa's Book of Disquiet over the others published around the same time, such as from Quartet Encounters and Carcanet, the latter with a fussy variant on the title: The Book of Disquietude. But this one is the most pleasurable...
Ben Borgers
No Dessert Challenge
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Art of Allowing Change: Neurobiologist Susan R. Barry’s Moving Correspondence with Oliver Sacks... There is a thought experiment known as Mary’s Room, brilliant and haunting, about the abyss between...
a year ago
35
a year ago
There is a thought experiment known as Mary’s Room, brilliant and haunting, about the abyss between felt experience and our mental models of it, about the nature of knowledge, the mystery of consciousness, and the irreducibility of aliveness: Living in a black-and-white chamber,...
Ploum.net
À la recherche de la déconnexion parfaite À la recherche de la déconnexion parfaite Une rétrospective de ma quête de concentration Une...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
À la recherche de la déconnexion parfaite Une rétrospective de ma quête de concentration Une première déconnexion À la fin de l’année 2018, épuisé par la promotion de la compagne Ulule de mon livre « Les aventures d’Aristide, le lapin cosmonaute » et prenant conscience de mon...
The Elysian
What futuristic projects should I visit around the world? What projects should I study around the world? And would you be interested in showing me around your...
a year ago
63
a year ago
What projects should I study around the world? And would you be interested in showing me around your city or project? I’d love your help plannin…
Ben Borgers
Pebble Presentation
over a year ago
Ploum.net
De la soumission au technofascisme religieux De la soumission au technofascisme religieux Les générateurs de code stupide Sur Mastodon, David...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
De la soumission au technofascisme religieux Les générateurs de code stupide Sur Mastodon, David Chisnall fait le point sur une année d’utilisation de GitHub Copilot pour coder. Et le résultat est clair : si, au début, il a l’impression de gagner du temps en devant moins taper...
The American Scholar
Overconsumed Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard The post...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard The post Overconsumed appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Books Read in May 2024 – Some are certainly knowing what they are meaning, some are certainly not... A month without writing anything.  Plenty of reading, though. FICTIONS The Autobiography of an...
a year ago
92
a year ago
A month without writing anything.  Plenty of reading, though. FICTIONS The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), James Weldon Johnson The Making of Americans (1925), Gertrude Stein – read over the course of months.  The quotation up above is from p. 783.  I will write about...
The American Scholar
“My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Heraclitus and Empedocles - Everything flows - eyes roamed alone My rummage through the early Greek philosophers has been rewarding, but it is a strange exercise. ...
over a year ago
71
over a year ago
My rummage through the early Greek philosophers has been rewarding, but it is a strange exercise.  “Readers of this book will, I suspect, be frequently perplexed and sometimes annoyed” write Jonathan Barnes in Early Greek Philosophy, a collection with commentary of the most...
The American Scholar
“Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 High Desert Road Map From Morongo Valley to 29 Palms, there’s plenty to explore. Here are a few of our favorite...
11 months ago
16
11 months ago
From Morongo Valley to 29 Palms, there’s plenty to explore. Here are a few of our favorite places. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Anarchy (or, less provocatively, Mutuality and Co-Creation) In 2017, I read The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the...
a year ago
15
a year ago
In 2017, I read The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey; everything and nothing changed. Lots changed because all of I sudden, I could clearly label a dynamic that had always irked me. I could see that some people would avoid...
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
45
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...
Ben Borgers
5 Pages a Day
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Anki and Memorization with Spaced Repetition Software This is not meant to be read in isolation. Memorization is almost useless without doing work ahead...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
This is not meant to be read in isolation. Memorization is almost useless without doing work ahead of time to grasp the material. For the full context, start with Learning how to Learn I’ve not been able to find any comprehensive guides to using Anki to learn programming, so this...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 No one’s ready for this An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A...
10 months ago
9
10 months ago
An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A cockroach in a box of takeout. It took less than 10 seconds to create each of these images with the Reimagine tool in the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. They are crisp. They are in full...
ben-mini
Making My SQL Skills Obsolete Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under...
6 months ago
77
6 months ago
Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under ben-mini.github.io will automatically redirect, so no changes are needed on your end. By far, the most useful LLM app I’ve made is the Kibu Schema God: I try not to make my posts too...
Ben Borgers
Punctuation
over a year 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
43
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...
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 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.
The American Scholar
“The Dream” by Theodore Roethke Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Dream” by Theodore Roethke appeared first on The...
3 months ago
39
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Dream” by Theodore Roethke appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Let Me Fix [some of] Your Parking Problems Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be focusing on parking lots. Your parking lot has a job to do, and every day, every night, rain or shine, hot or cold, clear, rainy, or snowy, your parking lot does the best it can at...
Josh Thompson
Why I use a Kindle Amazon’s e-reader is extremely functional. Most reasons to not use one focus either on practical...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Amazon’s e-reader is extremely functional. Most reasons to not use one focus either on practical issues (depending on something with a battery) or on aesthetic reasons. These are valid issues, of course, but these pale in comparison to the many, many reasons to use a...
Wuthering...
Stein's style - Mostly no one will be wanting to listen, I am certain Not many find it interesting this way I am realizing every one, not any I am just now hearing, and...
a year ago
102
a year ago
Not many find it interesting this way I am realizing every one, not any I am just now hearing, and it is so completely an important thing, it is a complete thing in understanding, I am going on writing, I am going on now with a description of all whom Alfred Hersland came to know...
Ben Borgers
A Small Life Radius
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Eunice Newton Foote and the Birth of Climate Science: The Forgotten Woman Who Discovered the... On an anonymous desk in a spartan classroom of the pioneering Troy Female Seminary, a teenage girl...
a year ago
18
a year ago
On an anonymous desk in a spartan classroom of the pioneering Troy Female Seminary, a teenage girl with blue-grey eyes and an oceanic mind is bent over an astronomy book, preparing to revolutionize our understanding of the planet. The year is 1836. No university anywhere in the...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Island Within With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no beginning and no end,...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no beginning and no end, and perhaps, to the unmindful, no meaning. To those who remain anchored emerges buried treasure from every line. I kept being drawn back in, not as an addiction, but, as I...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Midlife Malaise Part II It’s been an interesting year so far. Overall, I can’t overtly complain: I find my work gratifying,...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
It’s been an interesting year so far. Overall, I can’t overtly complain: I find my work gratifying, and have been fortunate to take some great trips this year both internationally (Mexico City and Kuala Lumpur), as well as some off-roading and camping locally. But there’s a...
The Marginalian
Are You Living a Fairy Tale, a Novel, or a Poem? When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death,...
11 months ago
88
11 months ago
When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death, an abandonment, a promise broken, a kindness withheld — we tend to cope in one of two ways: We question our own sanity, assuming the outside world coherent and our response a form...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 What price? If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up...
8 months ago
13
8 months ago
If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up eating their own slop and getting their own version of mad cow disease. So this might be as good as they’re ever going to get. — Jeremy Keith I use AI. Not particularly for...
This Space
The disappearance of criticism, part two A friend mentioned to me that he felt alienated by the articulacy of a literary critical book he was...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
A friend mentioned to me that he felt alienated by the articulacy of a literary critical book he was reading; by its neutrality of tone, by its calm. Unruffled was another word he used. We all might recognise this feeling while assuming it is admiration, respect, perhaps even...
The Elysian
The "letters to an anarchist" post-mortem Peter and I discuss our letter writing series.
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
Parking in Golden Parking in Golden is broken. This deeply broken parking situation causes vehicle and pedestrian...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Parking in Golden is broken. This deeply broken parking situation causes vehicle and pedestrian traffic in Golden to break, in the same way that if a machine on a manufacturing line breaks, adjacent components need to stop, or it will also malfunction. The topic of parking (at...
Steven Scrawls
"Progress" “Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions...
a year ago
17
a year ago
“Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions about a curated version of Wikipedia’s list of most-visited websites (see Notes for details). I invite you to follow along, issue your own snap judgments, and come to your own...
The Marginalian
Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Embracing Change in Relationships and the Key Pattern for Nourishing Love "All living relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Am I a Gym Bro Now?
over a year ago
This Space
An anniversary appeal On this day last year I began posting every day for 39 days to commemorate 39 years since I began...
2 months ago
31
2 months ago
On this day last year I began posting every day for 39 days to commemorate 39 years since I began reading books. I dug out a folder of book lists I'd kept since 1986, chose one book from each year that I'd not written about before and wrote what ever the book suggested to me....
The Elysian
I'm traveling the world to study utopia An update about my life and artistic process.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
The Power Broker, Chapter 30: Robert Moses and Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the Mayors”. The chapter is about Moses’ relationship with all of the mayors of NYC that overlapped with Moses’ “rule” over NYC. This excerpt covers just one of the mayors’ overlap...
Josh Thompson
On Learning As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the context of software development. I am a bit hyperactive when it comes to trying to learn new things. Over the years, I’ve done plenty of ineffective learning, and at least a...
ribbonfarm
Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last...
a year ago
19
a year ago
I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last November and finally finished it last week. It’s a really solid and absorbing book, and far too dense and rich with detail to zip through, which is why I read it a dozen or so pages...
This Space
39 Books: 1996 It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my...
a year ago
53
a year ago
It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my student housemate's innocent-looking hardback edition of Nicholson Baker's The Fermata in which Arno Strine writes about how he can actually stop time. The title refers to the...
Ben Borgers
Public Radio Stories
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Wholeness and the Implicate Order: Physicist David Bohm on Bridging Consciousness and Reality How to "include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided,...
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Divinations of the First Light: A Cosmic Poem for the Vera Rubin Observatory At the end of her trailblazing life, having swung open the gate of the possible for women in science...
a week ago
8
a week ago
At the end of her trailblazing life, having swung open the gate of the possible for women in science with her famous comet discovery, astronomer Maria Mitchell confided in one of her Vassar students that she would rather have authored a great poem than discovered a comet. A...
The American Scholar
Dottie Lo Bue House and home The post Dottie Lo Bue appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Escaping Flatland
On shortcuts and longcuts There’s this design heuristic that if people cut across the grass, you should pave the shortcut they...
a year ago
78
a year ago
There’s this design heuristic that if people cut across the grass, you should pave the shortcut they make. This gives the path a lovely human fit. But sometimes you want to do the opposite. You want to design ways to get people to take a longer path, a longcut, so they can see or...
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
8 months ago
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
102
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 American Scholar
Luis Alvaro Sahagún Nuño Ancestral healing The post Luis Alvaro Sahagún Nuño appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe ...
4 months ago
The Marginalian
The Work of Wonder: Phillip Glass on Art, Science, and the Most Important Quality of a Visionary Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions that have turned out false — consciousness is not ours alone, nor is grief, nor is play. If there is anything singular about us, it is our capacity to be wonder-smitten by the world...
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2024 A man sets out to draw the world.
6 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'With Purple Prose and a Bad Actor’s Gestures' On April 9, 1778, Johnson and Boswell dined at the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where Edward Gibbon...
a week ago
6
a week ago
On April 9, 1778, Johnson and Boswell dined at the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where Edward Gibbon and Davide Garrick, among others, were also present. The subject of translations, including Pope’s Homer, emerged. “We must try its effect as an English poem,” Johnson said, “that...
The Marginalian
The Rigor of Angels: Human Nature and the Nature of Reality "What we are striving for lies inside us; we find ourselves in the world and the world in...
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Money Saved By Canceling Programs Does Not Immediately Flow To The Best Possible Alternative ...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
Jason Middlebrook Tree rings in time The post Jason Middlebrook appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Internet trail magic Day 19: Sept 28, 2023 — We pull into a driveway in a quiet and pristine neighborhood. Jen and I...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Day 19: Sept 28, 2023 — We pull into a driveway in a quiet and pristine neighborhood. Jen and I approach the house of people I’ve known for years, but only from the internet. This will be the first time meeting in person. Craig opens the door, and we immediately hug. Following is...
Josh Thompson
Why Your Belayer is Keeping You from Climbing Hard(er) Since climbing regularly again (!!!), I’ve observed lots of belaying in the gym. I can’t walk up to...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Since climbing regularly again (!!!), I’ve observed lots of belaying in the gym. I can’t walk up to a stranger and say “Excuse me, sir, I noticed that your poor belaying is totally crippling your climber’s ability to try hard, and actively eliminating any hope you had of...
The American Scholar
The Shipping News Ian Kumekawa tells the story of the global economy in one barge The post The Shipping News appeared...
a month ago
19
a month ago
Ian Kumekawa tells the story of the global economy in one barge The post The Shipping News appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Grow Re-enchanted with the World: A Salve for the Sense of Existential Meaninglessness and... A shimmering reminder that "the magic is of our own conjuring."
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How the Sea Came to Be: An Illustrated Singsong Celebration of the Evolution of Life “Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses,” Rachel Carson wrote in...
a year ago
27
a year ago
“Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses,” Rachel Carson wrote in the pioneering 1937 essay that invited the human imagination into the science and splendor of the marine world for the first time — a world then more mysterious than the Moon, a...
The American Scholar
In the Lions’ Studio A new dual biography turns the lens on the towering architects of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The post In...
4 months ago
30
4 months ago
A new dual biography turns the lens on the towering architects of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The post In the Lions’ Studio appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Preparing to adopt a habit There are many habits I wish I had. More times than I can count, I have tried to get up early. I...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
There are many habits I wish I had. More times than I can count, I have tried to get up early. I faithfully set my alarm for some crack-of-dawn time that leaves me with a reasonable amount of sleep, but gives me time to myself before I have to get ready for work. Almost as many...
The American Scholar
A Portrait of the Scholar The life of Ireland’s towering literary figure became a work of art in its own right The post A...
a month ago
5
a month ago
The life of Ireland’s towering literary figure became a work of art in its own right The post A Portrait of the Scholar appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Your Literary Judgments Are Not Interesting' All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of us are afflicted to varying degrees with the superego of the age. That is, we are influenced, whether we know it or not, by the critical climate, by the judgments and fashions of...
Idle Words
Why Not Mars For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. — Richard Feynman Entrance to underground cavern on Pavonis Mons. HiRISE, 2011 The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human...
The American Scholar
Imperfecta Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the...
a year ago
75
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.
Ben Borgers
Ben Forms
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in September 2024 - Boring books had their origin in boring readers My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said...
9 months ago
73
9 months ago
My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said it out loud so maybe I will really do it. November is Norwegian month at Dolce Bellezza.  I will be joining her by reading at least the first novel, The Other Name (2019), of Jon...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rivian — Pentagram A custom typeface for the American electric vehicle manufacturer reflects its spirit of innovation...
7 months ago
15
7 months ago
A custom typeface for the American electric vehicle manufacturer reflects its spirit of innovation and adventure. Söhne is the typeface du jour of late (Stripe, OpenAI/ChatGPT, Rivian prior to this, and even this very website), and its nice to see Pentagram evolve it in...
The American Scholar
Rage, Muse The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or...
11 months ago
70
11 months ago
The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or forgotten The post Rage, Muse appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 376 ...
2 months ago
Escaping Flatland
When writing, look at what you are trying to describe more than at your words 9 reflections
a month ago
The Marginalian
Grace Against Gravity and the Physics of Vulnerability: How Birds Fly and Why They Flock in a V... “What we see from the air is so simple and beautiful,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote after her first...
7 months ago
44
7 months ago
“What we see from the air is so simple and beautiful,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote after her first airplane flight, “I cannot help feeling that it would do something wonderful for the human race — rid it of much smallness and pettiness if more people flew.” I am writing this aboard an...
Josh Thompson
I Once Worked Hard When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career there. I was a college graduate (that means something, right?) working at a climbing gym, part time, teaching seven-year-olds how to climb at about $10 an hour. I had no idea what I...
Ben Borgers
What is JumboCode?
over a year ago
The Marginalian
We Go to the Park: A Soulful Illustrated Meditation on Our Search for Meaning "Sometimes it feels as if all of life is made up of longing."
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ On Racism On May 31, 2020, I wrote these words (on Instagram) days after George Floyd was killed: I am a brown...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
On May 31, 2020, I wrote these words (on Instagram) days after George Floyd was killed: I am a brown person. I am an immigrant. I am Southeast Asian. I am Malaysian. And I am an American. I’m a third culture kid. I came to the States at 19, alone. I’ve lived here for 22+ years,...
The Marginalian
Befriending a Blackbird Friendship is a lifeline twined of truth and tenderness. That we extend it to each other is...
a year ago
88
a year ago
Friendship is a lifeline twined of truth and tenderness. That we extend it to each other is benediction enough. To extend it across the barrier of biology and sentience, to another creature endowed with a wholly other consciousness, partakes of the miraculous. Born in England in...
Josh Thompson
Talent is Overrated Talent is Overrated In Talent is Overrated, the author argues that world-class performers are not...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Talent is Overrated In Talent is Overrated, the author argues that world-class performers are not genetically gifted. The difference between world-class performers and the rest of us? Lots of deliberate practice. (Read the article.) I have no interest in becoming Mozart, or Tiger...
The Marginalian
Stalactite & Stalagmite: A Brief Illustrated History of Earth and One Great Truth about Love We are always either drawing closer or drifting apart — there is no stasis in relationships. The...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
We are always either drawing closer or drifting apart — there is no stasis in relationships. The direction of movement may change over the course of a relationship, but there is no stasis. Despite our culture’s bias for the drama of cataclysm — the violent heartbreaks, the very...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ May in the Mojave Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
The Present You It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the present you, or the future you. I...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the present you, or the future you. I wish the future me could sit beside the present me, and discuss how I was going about my day. Instead, it’s a rather one-sided conversation. There are obvious choices, like food,...
The Marginalian
An Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of the Art of... "We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves that there may be ground enough for...
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
The TikTok Peer Group
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Ask Already The post Ask Already appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 weeks ago
The Marginalian
Some Thoughts about the Ocean and the Universe How to bear the gravity of being.
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Turning the Tide: Can Kamala Harris Flip Texas Blue? Let me be clear: Texas will be blue. It’s inevitable. The only question is when? And how do we get...
10 months ago
9
10 months ago
Let me be clear: Texas will be blue. It’s inevitable. The only question is when? And how do we get there? Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
This Space
39 Books: 1988 This is one of my most surprising discoveries in second-hand bookshop trawls in the far off days...
a year ago
42
a year ago
This is one of my most surprising discoveries in second-hand bookshop trawls in the far off days when they existed, especially because it was found in Portsmouth, not the most literary of cities despite Dickens and Conan-Doyle (or perhaps because of Dickens and Conan-Doyle)....
The Marginalian
We Are the Music, We Are the Spark: Pioneering Biologist Ernest Everett Just on What Makes Life... "Life is exquisitely a time-thing, like music."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
10 months ago
55
10 months ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid
Hustle to Flow A meditation on entering flow state. A snack beckons. I stand up and head a few feet away to the...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
A meditation on entering flow state. A snack beckons. I stand up and head a few feet away to the kitchen area. A hojicha latte is on my mind, and also a bite. My brain is at operational capacity, and I am in a flow state. The metabolic need feels high, and I need to keep my...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Among Those Who Read There is Great Variety' Writing is famously the most narcissistic of professions, even worse than acting or being a...
a month ago
16
a month ago
Writing is famously the most narcissistic of professions, even worse than acting or being a politician. We’re forever carrying on about ourselves and our precious insights, like the kid in class who raises his hand and goes “Ooh! Ooh!” each time the teacher asks a question....
Anecdotal Evidence
'Our World Has Passed Away' Dinant is a small city in the Walloon region of Belgium, on the Meuse River. It is one of those...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
Dinant is a small city in the Walloon region of Belgium, on the Meuse River. It is one of those otherwise obscure places (Fort Pillow, Lidice, My Lai) that has lent its name to an atrocity. On August 23, 1914, in the early weeks of World War I, German troops slaughtered almost...
Josh Thompson
Rules for Fighting Fair When a friend tells me they want to date someone, I ask them why. They always say “she’s pretty,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
When a friend tells me they want to date someone, I ask them why. They always say “she’s pretty, funny, and kind”, or “he is handsome, funny, and cares for me”. Obviously. Have you ever wanted to date someone because they are ugly, boring, and mean? So, rather than asking more...
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
56
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 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
68
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.
Astral Codex Ten
More Drowning Children ...
3 months ago
Idle Words
Protests and Power In August 2020, the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed for a special feature on...
over a year ago
11
over 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. When the George Floyd protests began to spread nationally in the summer of 2020, I...
The American Scholar
“Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared...
8 months ago
54
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“Wild Peaches” by Elinor Wylie Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Wild Peaches” by Elinor Wylie appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Wild Peaches” by Elinor Wylie appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Pluto was 2006??
over a year ago
The Elysian
How can the economy work better for us? An interview with Kathryn Anne Edwards.
4 months ago
Ploum.net
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) 20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop" : Looking...
6 months ago
14
6 months ago
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop" : Looking to make the perfect desktop with GNOME and Debian, a young Ploum finds himself joining a stealth project called "no-name-yet". The project is later published under the name...
Josh Thompson
Finding an Edge These last two weeks have been the hardest, or the most frustrating, of my time at Turing so...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
These last two weeks have been the hardest, or the most frustrating, of my time at Turing so far. I’ve been put a little off-balance by this difficulty, and I think I’m close to uncovering some useful tidbit or idea that will serve me well, and might serve someone else...
The Marginalian
The Beach and the Soul: Anne Morrow Lindbergh on the Benedictions of the Sea "The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience,...
a year ago
39
a year ago
"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient... Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach."
Ben Borgers
Date Picker Details
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 367 ...
4 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dungeons & Dragons taught me how to write alt text I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an...
11 months ago
9
11 months ago
I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an advice column. The problem was the person who was running the game wanting to enliven his descriptions, as they felt like their narration was both boring and confusing. The advice for...
The Marginalian
Emerson on the Singular Enchantment of Indian Summer (and a Better Term for This Liminal Season... "There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and...
8 months ago
sbensu
Pricing APIs Lessons from AWS S3 and others on how to price APIs.
a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in March 2024 - Literature was a game of pillaging, and this book showed it. A nice little run at Persian literature this month.  And I am reading in Portuguese again,...
a year ago
48
a year ago
A nice little run at Persian literature this month.  And I am reading in Portuguese again, slowly, slowly. PERSIAN LITERATURE, MOSTLY CLASSICAL Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (1110),  Abolqasem Ferdowsi – See here for notes on this big epic in Dick Davis’s translation. The...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Tusks No timeline. Just your posts. There are many great Mastodon apps. Tusks isn’t meant to replace but...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
No timeline. Just your posts. There are many great Mastodon apps. Tusks isn’t meant to replace but to augment. It makes posting on Mastodon feel like publishing to your blog. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Elysian
Will you explain anarchism to me? Letters to an anarchist, part one.
7 months ago
The Marginalian
Kafka on Friendship and the Art of Reconnection Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a profound knowledge of each other, of the soul beneath the costume of personality — that lovely Celtic notion of anam cara. We bring this knowledge, this mutual understanding, to...
The Marginalian
How to Bear Your Loneliness: Grounding Wisdom from the Great Buddhist Teacher Pema Chödrön "We are cheating ourselves when we run away from the ambiguity of loneliness."
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 374 ...
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don't Get Jason Nazar recently wrote an article titled 20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don’t Get. Please read it, but...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Jason Nazar recently wrote an article titled 20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don’t Get. Please read it, but with a big grain of salt. Nazar opens with the statement “I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I see this generation making their own.” This seems to be an aspirational...
The American Scholar
Chapters and Verse Looking for the poet between the lines The post Chapters and Verse appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
22
4 months ago
Looking for the poet between the lines The post Chapters and Verse appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
How can we rewild the Earth at scale? From global targets to backyard projects
3 days ago
The Marginalian
Beyond Either/Or: Kierkegaard on the Passion for Possibility and the Key to Resetting Relationships "Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the...
11 months ago
52
11 months ago
"Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the possible, that eye which everywhere, ever young, ever burning, sees possibility."
Josh Thompson
On Leaving Evangelicalism And Opposing It Content warning & summary This paper talks about ethics, ethical behavior, violence, abuse,...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Content warning & summary This paper talks about ethics, ethical behavior, violence, abuse, complicency, domination and oppression. It’s a condimnation of evangelicalism, but not, necessarily, any particular evangelical. There are those within evangelicalism who are ethical,...
The Marginalian
The Galapagos and the Meaning of Life: A Young Woman’s Bittersweet Experiment in Inner Freedom “We may think we are domesticated but we are not,” Jay Griffiths wrote in her homily on not wasting...
8 months ago
38
8 months ago
“We may think we are domesticated but we are not,” Jay Griffiths wrote in her homily on not wasting our wildness, insisting on the “primal allegiance” the human spirit has to the wild. A decade after artist Rockwell Kent headed to a remote Alaskan island “to stand face to face...
Josh Thompson
Input metrics vs. Output metrics It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something. If you’re working on any...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something. If you’re working on any project of sufficient size, the results will come slowly, fitfully, and sometimes not at all. So, don’t track results, track your efforts. (Yes, how very American of me. I don’t believe...
Josh Thompson
Tour of D3 for Clueless Folk Like Me D3 stands for Data Driven Documents, and it’s the coolest thing ever. Check out a few...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
D3 stands for Data Driven Documents, and it’s the coolest thing ever. Check out a few examples: Animated, interactive curves(dynamic) OMG Particles II(dynamic) simple map of the us(static) <= very little code Radial Dendrogram(static) circle wave(dynamic) Force-directed...
The Elysian
Multi-country civilizations are good, actually A vibe shift in favor of annexation would be counterproductive 🌏
3 months ago
The American Scholar
Anchoring Shards of Memory We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of...
10 months ago
40
10 months ago
We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Deeper Reasons Democrats Lost In other words, the story is less a rightward shift than an anti-Trump collapse. And, more...
7 months ago
14
7 months ago
In other words, the story is less a rightward shift than an anti-Trump collapse. And, more importantly, that many people have generally exited the political process all together. I'm mostly abstaining from the many hot takes on why the election went the way it did. This may be...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 363 ...
5 months ago
Ben Borgers
App Identity
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Kids Are We get off the bus, our feet landing on Mission Street at the corner of 24th here in San Francisco....
7 months ago
14
7 months ago
We get off the bus, our feet landing on Mission Street at the corner of 24th here in San Francisco. Our destination is the famed La Taqueria, and despite its notoriety for the burritos they serve, we're here for tacos — because their tacos are absofuckinglutely delicious. As we...
Escaping Flatland
How I write essays Notes on process
7 months ago
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 3 - melodrama, drinking games, and "a convocation of bees and... I am two-thirds through Cao Xueqin’s enormous The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), volume 3 of the...
6 months ago
56
6 months ago
I am two-thirds through Cao Xueqin’s enormous The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), volume 3 of the David Hawkes translation, and the next twenty chapters have arrived at the library so I had better write this chunk up. In this big middle section a number of minor or even...
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.
The Perry Bible...
Brushed The post Brushed appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Dictionary Story: A Love Letter to Language Tucked Into a Delightful Fable about the Difficult... “Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf rasped in the only surviving recording of her voice — a...
7 months ago
42
7 months ago
“Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf rasped in the only surviving recording of her voice — a love letter to language as an instrument of thought and a medium of being. “Words are events, they do things, change things,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a generation after her. To...
sbensu
On becoming a person (book) It reframes therapy as a relationship instead of a treatment.
7 months ago
This Space
Ultimate things: The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka Although we are unmusical, we have a tradition of singing     Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
Although we are unmusical, we have a tradition of singing     Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk The first reason to celebrate Shelley Frisch’s new translation into English of Kafka’s short prose written in the village of Zürau, now Siřem in the Czech Republic, is that...
Josh Thompson
STOP YELLING ON THE INTERNET, or, A Better Use for the Caps Lock Key My current project is to learn to type using an alternative keyboard layout called Colemak. QWERTY...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
My current project is to learn to type using an alternative keyboard layout called Colemak. QWERTY has problems. Here are a few, shamelessly borrowed from Colemak.com It places very rare letters in the best positions, so your fingers have to move a lot more. It suffers from a...
The Marginalian
Thunder, Bells, and Silence: The Eclipse that Went Extinct What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that...
a year ago
94
a year ago
What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that late-summer day in 1914, all the other passenger pigeons gone from the face of the Earth, having once filled its skies with an immensity of beating wings, so many that John James...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The art in everyday life It’s becoming more important than ever that people keep making art, in the age of derivative AI slop...
7 months ago
14
7 months ago
It’s becoming more important than ever that people keep making art, in the age of derivative AI slop and an ever-worsening political climate. Deliberately creative pursuits are radical. I gave a talk a while back about building personal websites (and I’ll write that talk up soon)...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Things Which Make a Life of Ease' R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his...
a month ago
12
a month ago
R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his translation of a well-known epigram by Martial, the Roman master of the pithy form. Bob found it among his papers and doesn’t remember making it. “[T]ranslating something [Ben]...
Josh Thompson
Full Copy of 'The Atlanta Zone Plan' from 1922 A Warning and a Request In a moment, you will read the full text of a 1922 marketing pamphlet. This...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
A Warning and a Request In a moment, you will read the full text of a 1922 marketing pamphlet. This document is an important thread to understanding some very large political problems facing the world today, specifically housing, affordability, the growing wealth gap, and...
Josh Thompson
The Millionaire Next Door I’m struggling to know what to write about The Millionaire Next Door. It’s got many wonderful...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I’m struggling to know what to write about The Millionaire Next Door. It’s got many wonderful traits, and I strongly recommend that you read it (I wouldn’t mention it otherwise) but it’s got some flaws. I’m afraid if I focus on the flaws, I’ll turn people off from it that might...
The American Scholar
White Easter The post White Easter appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
It's Fun to Do Things with Care
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mystery of Language I Shall Never Solve' Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for a poem. How many ways are there to be jubilant or render the sensation of “cavorting with the milkmaids,” as an old friend once put it? The effort usually comes off as hackneyed or...
Josh Thompson
Piece by Piece The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product (of the digital variety) that will be so damn goodpeople will pay me $100 or more to get it.  I’ve got a lot of bits and pieces of it littered around the internet, my computer,...
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest... “All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
8 months ago
54
8 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
Ben Borgers
RealMoji
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Habits, Milestones, and Climbing Since April 9th, I have spent exactly 70 minutes training for climbing. Prior to April 27th, I have...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Since April 9th, I have spent exactly 70 minutes training for climbing. Prior to April 27th, I have climbed exactly seven times in the last five months. I just spent two days at the New River Gorge and exceeded my expectations, considering my almost half-year hiatus from regular...
The Marginalian
Favorite Books of the Year: Art, Science, Poetry, Psychology, Children’s, and More Because I read for the same reason I write — to fathom my life and deepen my living — looking back...
6 months ago
58
6 months ago
Because I read for the same reason I write — to fathom my life and deepen my living — looking back on a year of life has always been looking back on a year of reading. This year was different — a time of such profound pain and profound transformation that it fused reading and...
Ben Borgers
Giving Out Chick-fil-A on a Schedule App
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Experience Machine: Cognitive Philosopher Andy Clark on the Power of Expectation and How the... "We are never simply seeing what’s 'really there,' stripped bare of our own anticipations or...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
"We are never simply seeing what’s 'really there,' stripped bare of our own anticipations or insulated from our own past experiences. Instead, all human experience is part phantom — the product of deep-set predictions."
Astral Codex Ten
The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh Sorry, you can only get drugs when there's a drug shortage.
3 months ago
The Marginalian
Doris: A Watercolor Serenade to the Courage of Authenticity and the Art of Connection “There is no insurmountable solitude,” Pablo Neruda asserted in his stirring Nobel Prize acceptance...
a year ago
36
a year ago
“There is no insurmountable solitude,” Pablo Neruda asserted in his stirring Nobel Prize acceptance speech. “All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the...
The Marginalian
William James on the Most Vital Understanding for Successful Relationships "Neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer."
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Reason and Emotion: Scottish Philosopher John Macmurray on the Key to Wholeness and the Fundaments... "The emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not, as we so often...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
"The emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not, as we so often think, subordinate, or subsidiary to the mind. It is the core and essence of human life. The intellect arises out of it, is rooted in it, draws its nourishment and sustenance from it."
The Marginalian
Sheltering the Heroes Among Us: John Berger on Art as Resistance and Redemption of Justice "The powerful fear art, whatever its form... because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
"The powerful fear art, whatever its form... because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities cannot, a sense that unites us... becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring."
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The Marginalian
What Makes Life Alive: Vassily Grossman on Consciousness, Freedom, and Kindness “Every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life,” William Blake wrote in an era when science...
11 months ago
60
11 months ago
“Every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life,” William Blake wrote in an era when science first began raising questions with spiritual undertones: What is life? Where does it begin and end? What makes it alive? But in the epochs since, having discovered muons and...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 HEX – A typographic company HEX Projects is a typographic company founded by Nick Sherman that makes fonts and websites. — Nick...
6 months ago
30
6 months ago
HEX Projects is a typographic company founded by Nick Sherman that makes fonts and websites. — Nick Sherman Gah, Nick Sherman's typefaces are lovely. HEX Franklin is used in a few places I've spotted but I'm particularly interested in Manifold, NYC Sans, Jubilee, and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Frivolous Subjects?' “Frivolous subjects? Well, and thank God for it, not everybody can be writing about big,...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
“Frivolous subjects? Well, and thank God for it, not everybody can be writing about big, so-called important issues: population, genes, semantics, sex, death. Surely there is value in anything that makes us laugh, that makes us understand ourselves more.”  These wise words are...
Wuthering...
Not Shakespeare - a preliminary, semi-formed invitation to read plays by Shakespeare's... Here’s something I’ve been wanting to do.  I’ve been wanting to return to the plays of...
3 weeks ago
15
3 weeks ago
Here’s something I’ve been wanting to do.  I’ve been wanting to return to the plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson and so on.  The Spanish Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, The Knight of the Burning Pestle,  Bartholomew Fair.  It has been a while...
The Marginalian
Coleridge on the Paradox of Friendship and Romantic Love On sympathy, reciprocity, and satisfying the fulness of our nature.
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Anima: One Woman’s Search for Meaning in the Footsteps of Bulgarian Mountain Shepherds "All our lives we perform tasks while waiting for something to click into place. For somewhere to...
6 days ago
Escaping Flatland
Notes on energy and intelligence becoming cheaper In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various...
a year ago
23
a year ago
In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various poets I knew and submitted the results to a fanzine.
Ben Borgers
year 1
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
3 months ago