Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
Top Categories > literature
#all #programming #technology #startups #history #life #science #literature #architecture #creative #design #finance #travel #comics #AI #indiehacker #cartography Muted Categories [alt+←][alt+→]
Anecdotal Evidence
'He’s Not the Only One' My newly graduated youngest son is visiting Thailand with friends from his alma mater, Rice...
a month ago
15
a month ago
My newly graduated youngest son is visiting Thailand with friends from his alma mater, Rice University. Most of the photos he has sent document meals eaten and temples visited, but among them is this one, my favorite image:  The smiling head of the Buddha sunk among the...
The Marginalian
The Double Flame: Octavio Paz on Love “Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other… A knot made of...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
“Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other… A knot made of two intertwined freedoms.” We love to forget ourselves, but also to remember what we are: mortal creatures lustful of meaning, radiant with life, eternally alone and eternally...
Anecdotal Evidence
'After the Rain, Perhaps, Something Will Show' Most of us are born with a brain but without a user’s manual. This soggy organ weighs on average...
2 days ago
3
2 days ago
Most of us are born with a brain but without a user’s manual. This soggy organ weighs on average about three pounds and contains 86 billion neurons. That’s our birthright, and we did nothing to earn it. We tend to operate our brains passively, ignoring most available perceptions....
Idle Words
Let's All Wear A Mask Let's talk about masks! On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control recommended that every...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Let's talk about masks! On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control recommended that every American wear a face covering when in public. Masks will be the hot, bold look for summer. The medical evidence for the practice is overwhelming. The post-SARS countries in East...
The Marginalian
Oliver Sacks on Despair and the Meaning of Life "The meaning of life... clearly has to do with love — what and whom and how one can love."
8 months ago
The American Scholar
Survival Situation The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The...
a year ago
40
a year ago
The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 We Need More Than Fewer, Better Things Given this understanding of benefits and harms, then, the mantra of “fewer, better things” carries...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
Given this understanding of benefits and harms, then, the mantra of “fewer, better things” carries an implied equivalence between better and longer. But I’m pretty sure that my nonexistent grandchildren aren’t looking forward to inheriting my inexpensive plastic garbage can,...
Josh Thompson
On Minimalism I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance is because I think the label brings in a bunch of connotations that I don’t like. Our apartment never looked like this. Source: home-designing.com What is Minimalism? a removal or...
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
27
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...
The Marginalian
The Work of Happiness: May Sarton’s Stunning Poem About Being at Home in Yourself "What is happiness but growth in peace."
over a year ago
The Marginalian
2,000 Years of Kindness From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
over a year ago
82
over a year ago
From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
The Marginalian
The Paradise Notebooks: A Poet and a Geologist’s Love Letter to Life Lensed Through a Mountain "Each world bears all the worlds we might find within it. If you understand one outcropping of...
a year ago
99
a year ago
"Each world bears all the worlds we might find within it. If you understand one outcropping of stone, or one wildflower, or one hummingbird — if we see our way along the tracery of cause and effect, the mystery of change and recreation — then we are led to everything we see, and...
The Marginalian
17 Life-Learnings from 17 Years of The Marginalian The Marginalian was born on October 23, 2006, under an outgrown name, to an outgrown self that feels...
a year ago
61
a year ago
The Marginalian was born on October 23, 2006, under an outgrown name, to an outgrown self that feels to me now almost like a different species of consciousness. (It can only be so — if we don’t continually outgrow ourselves, if we don’t wince a little at our former ideas, ideals,...
The American Scholar
Jason Middlebrook Tree rings in time The post Jason Middlebrook appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Soliloquy for Two' The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases of the Nervous System (1933), remains in print. The Royal College of Physicians has called it “the standard British textbook on his subject.” Brain was also a poet and...
The Marginalian
How to Love the World More: George Saunders on the Courage of Uncertainty "In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
"In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious)."
The American Scholar
Going for Gold Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympic gymnast whose 1904 record still hasn’t been beaten The post...
11 months ago
56
11 months ago
Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympic gymnast whose 1904 record still hasn’t been beaten The post Going for Gold appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Any Common Desolation "You may have to break your heart, but it isn’t nothing to know even one moment alive."
3 months ago
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2024 A man sets out to draw the world.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Utterly Intoxicated by His Affection' Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a...
2 months ago
17
2 months ago
Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a father who failed to claim his son, however mangy or hunchbacked he was. Not that he does not perceive his defect, unless he is utterly intoxicated by his affection; but the fact...
Escaping Flatland
Without looking it up, what do you think? + links
8 months ago
Ben Borgers
We’re All Powered by Electric Meat
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Value of Being Wrong: Lewis Thomas on Generative Mistakes In praise of our "property of error, spontaneous, uncontrolled, and rich in possibilities."
over a year ago
The Elysian
How WeFunder democratizes business ownership A discussion with Jonny Price, president of WeFunder.
3 months ago
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
Ben Borgers
Class Council: “Brutally Honest”
over a year ago
The Elysian
CITY STATE: A discussion about autonomous governance Here's the recording from our literary salon discussion.
a month ago
Escaping Flatland
Becoming perceptive This is the second part of an essay series that began with “Everything that turned out well in my...
10 months ago
92
10 months ago
This is the second part of an essay series that began with “Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process.” It can be read on its own.
Wuthering...
Thales, the first philosopher - what is philosophy, anyways? He [Thales of Miletus] held that the original substance of all things is water, and that the world...
over a year ago
79
over a year ago
He [Thales of Miletus] held that the original substance of all things is water, and that the world is animate and full of deities.  They say he discovered the seasons of the year, and divided the day into 365 days.  (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, p. 12,...
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...
Astral Codex Ten
The Early Christian Strategy ...
7 months ago
Ben Borgers
Do You Subvocalize?
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Why I Am Not A Conflict Theorist ...
4 months ago
The Elysian
Mondragon as the new City-State This cooperative could be its own country.
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Carrying On, Backing Out, Moving on But to my original remark, I’m backing out of Meta Corporation platforms. Maybe that’s all I mean....
7 months ago
20
7 months ago
But to my original remark, I’m backing out of Meta Corporation platforms. Maybe that’s all I mean. It’s the election, of course, and its campaigns. It’s the devolution of news and journalism and the rise of manipulative and untruthful media. It’s all kinds of things. Lies and...
The Marginalian
Stunning 200-Year-Old French Illustrations of Exotic, Endangered, and Extinct Birds From peacocks to penguins, a winged menagerie of wonder.
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Notes at 45 As I sit squarely in my mid-40s, I’ve gained valuable perspectives, learnings, and understandings....
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
As I sit squarely in my mid-40s, I’ve gained valuable perspectives, learnings, and understandings. Here are some of them: People > things. In our current society, the deepening pit of materialism, capitalism, and an insatiable desire for more has become all-consuming. However,...
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
94
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...
The Marginalian
The Whole of It Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form of living against it and not with it — the pain of loss, aching for what has been and no longer is; the pain of longing, aching for what could be but is not yet and may never be;...
Naz Hamid
The Abstraction Gap Bridging the design-development gap as AI rises. There’s a frustrating gap in how development...
2 months ago
14
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...
Josh Thompson
Load Testing your app with Siege Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires authentication to access. Today, we’ll figure out how to use siege to visit many unique URLs on our page, and to get benchmarks on that process. I’ll next figure out performance...
The Marginalian
How to Be a Stone: Three Poems for Trusting Time If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a...
2 weeks ago
14
2 weeks ago
If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a mountain and listen to the conversation between eons encoded in each stripe of rock. Walk a beach and comb your fingers through the golden dust that was once a mountain. Pick up a...
The Marginalian
18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of The Marginalian Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any...
The Marginalian
What It Takes to Grow: Pioneering Psychoanalyst Karen Horney on the Key to Self-Realization "Self-knowledge... is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous...
over a year ago
112
over a year ago
"Self-knowledge... is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth. In this sense, to work at ourselves becomes not only the prime moral obligation, but... the prime moral privilege."
Josh Thompson
Setting up Application Performance Monitoring in DataDog in your Rails App When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work through things in excruciating detail. You might find this to be a little too in-depth, or you might appreciate the detail. Either way, if you want a step-by-step guide, this should do...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 357 ...
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
Monthly Review: October This is my first monthly review. I’ll spend some time fleshing out the why and the how, and then get...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
This is my first monthly review. I’ll spend some time fleshing out the why and the how, and then get right to it. If you don’t want to read a lot of introspective Josh, stop reading. I use the word “I” dozens of times. Consider yourself warned. For a long time I have feared life...
The American Scholar
Ideology as Anatomy How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives The post Ideology as Anatomy...
7 months ago
29
7 months ago
How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives The post Ideology as Anatomy appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
The Beginning of College Sucks
over a year ago
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
A measuring device that tells me what is interesting + links
9 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...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks 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...
Astral Codex Ten
Twilight Of The Edgelords Should edgy heterodox centrists accept some of the blame for Trump?
3 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Biblioteca Vasconselos In the Buenavista neighborhood resides this impressive library that spans 409,000 sq ft, designed by...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
In the Buenavista neighborhood resides this impressive library that spans 409,000 sq ft, designed by Mexican architects Alberto Kalach and Juan Palomar. Adored by those that appreciate architecture, and those looking for Instagram fodder, the space feels like you’re in the...
Wuthering...
Books I read in August 2024 My ambition this summer was to read extensively in Arabic literature.  Eh, I did all right, but I...
10 months ago
35
10 months ago
My ambition this summer was to read extensively in Arabic literature.  Eh, I did all right, but I will have to save Ibn Battuta’s Travels and the second half of Leg over Leg for some other time.  FICTION The Arabian Nights (14th c.), many hands – In the great Hassan Haddawy...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Full of the Little Obscurities' “A man may profess to understand the President of the United States, but he seldom alleges, even...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
“A man may profess to understand the President of the United States, but he seldom alleges, even to himself, that he understands his own wife.”  Anecdotal Evidence attracts an admirably knowledgeable set of readers, mostly proud amateurs like its author. As best I can judge,...
Ben Borgers
The Magic of the Common Room
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Software Seems Resilient
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Music in 2024 The last few years have been great for discovering even more artists, and the revivals and reunions...
6 months ago
24
6 months ago
The last few years have been great for discovering even more artists, and the revivals and reunions of some of them have produced music that is fresh, with new takes and, even better, genre-bending and blending. Here are the albums and songs that were a definite hell yes for me...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Things That Might Have Been and Never Were' My middle son enjoys a genre of fiction known as “alternate history.” Among its practitioners is the...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
My middle son enjoys a genre of fiction known as “alternate history.” Among its practitioners is the American novelist Harry Turtledove. As I understand it, the premise is simple: change an event in the past and see what happens in subsequent history. Hitler, for instance, dies...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let Them at Any Rate Be Your Acquaintances' “Nothing makes a man more reverent than a library.”  An interesting gauge of human sensibility, a...
3 weeks ago
10
3 weeks ago
“Nothing makes a man more reverent than a library.”  An interesting gauge of human sensibility, a sort of litmus test to judge personality and values, might be to place your subject in a large, well-stocked library (or bookstore), wire him for blood pressure, heart rate, skin...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 362 ...
6 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 360 ...
6 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dragönsteel Inspired by heavy metal logos, 1980s role-playing games, and maybe dragons and dusty, leather-bound...
12 months ago
12
12 months ago
Inspired by heavy metal logos, 1980s role-playing games, and maybe dragons and dusty, leather-bound books, Dragönsteel is our take on a modern-ish blackletter typeface. — Dan Cederholm Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Lonely Funeral of Your Speech' Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely...
5 months ago
17
5 months ago
Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely in the history of English literature, at least as reported by the not-always-reliable John Aubrey. It’s absurd but if true it helps beatify the author of The Advancement of Learning...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, fairy tale and realism - Not so wonderful, really, is it? I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a...
9 months ago
66
9 months ago
I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a party.  I will rejoin the party planning momentarily. The Story of the Stone is a massive domestic novel about an extended family.  The main plot is the teenage love triangle, but...
Ben Borgers
Work-Life Separation in College
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rick Rubin on Listening If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in...
12 months ago
23
12 months ago
If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in the experience. When the piece ends, you might be surprised by where you find yourself. You’ve been transported to another place. The place where the music lives. — Rick...
The Elysian
I’m building a cooperative media ecosystem Owned by writers interested in a better future.
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
Do Not Work in Isolation I fear criticism. I don’t have nightmares about it, and I’m not (too) crippled by a desire to avoid...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I fear criticism. I don’t have nightmares about it, and I’m not (too) crippled by a desire to avoid it, but I absolutely don’t like criticism, or being disappointing, or any of those things. If my ego were making all decisions, I would move even slower than I do today into “new”...
Escaping Flatland
Morning ritual + reading recommendations
a year ago
The Elysian
Elysian gatherings around the world Picnic with me in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and San Francisco.
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
Continuous Glucose Monitors: Why & What This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the...
a year ago
17
a year ago
This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the rear of my upper arm, usually sparks a question or two, I’ve usually stumbled through a response, now I can simply pass this page along to anyone who asks. Since maybe 2018, every...
The Elysian
Join us for a discussion about CITY STATE A literary salon discussion about autonomous governance.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
Others Too many people in the world isn’t the problem—people are the problem The post Others appeared first...
10 months ago
57
10 months ago
Too many people in the world isn’t the problem—people are the problem The post Others appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
An Intro to Customer Success Customer Success - what is it? When I tell people I work in “Customer Success”, they immediately...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Customer Success - what is it? When I tell people I work in “Customer Success”, they immediately think I do either Customer Support, or sales. In a way, they are correct. I do both. Today, and more in the future, I’ll dig deep into this particular industry. A traditional...
The Marginalian
Why Bats Shouldn’t Exist: The Limits of Knowledge, the Pitfalls of Prediction, and the Triumph of... Prediction is the sharpest tool the human animal has devised — the chisel with which we sculpted...
9 hours ago
2
9 hours ago
Prediction is the sharpest tool the human animal has devised — the chisel with which we sculpted survival out of chance, the fulcrum by which we lifted civilization out of survival. Among the greatest gifts of the imagination, that crowning curio of consciousness, is our ability...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Word Is a World' When someone had eaten his fill and couldn’t take another bite, my maternal grandmother, born the...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
When someone had eaten his fill and couldn’t take another bite, my maternal grandmother, born the same year as T.S. Eliot, would say, “His sufficiency is suffonsified.” I’ve never heard another person utter those words. For most of my life I assumed the fourth word in that...
Ben Borgers
Friday, January 14, 2022
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Forgiveness Shortly after I began the year with some blessings, a friend sent me Lucille Clifton’s spare,...
5 months ago
74
5 months ago
Shortly after I began the year with some blessings, a friend sent me Lucille Clifton’s spare, splendid poem “blessing the boats.” We had met at a poetry workshop and shared a resolution to write more poetry in the coming year, so we began taking turns each week choosing a line...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Secret Hidden From Yourself' Howard Nemerov was born on Leap Year Day in 1920 – February 29 -- meaning his birthday can be...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
Howard Nemerov was born on Leap Year Day in 1920 – February 29 -- meaning his birthday can be accurately observed only every fourth year – a nice metaphysical conundrum. This reminds me of a cousin who was bitter because she was born on Christmas Day and felt she was getting less...
The Marginalian
Nature’s Oldest Mandolin: The Poetic Science of How Cicadas Sing “The use of music,” Richard Powers wrote, “is to remind us how short a time we have a body” — a...
a year ago
89
a year ago
“The use of music,” Richard Powers wrote, “is to remind us how short a time we have a body” — a truth nowhere more bittersweet than in the creature whose body is the oldest unchanged musical instrument on Earth: a tiny mandolin silent for most of its existence, then sonorous with...
The American Scholar
Lessons in the Diplomatic Arts Notes from a musical tour of South Africa The post Lessons in the Diplomatic Arts appeared first on...
a week ago
26
a week ago
Notes from a musical tour of South Africa The post Lessons in the Diplomatic Arts appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Goals In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing every day for 30 days and not posting once in...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing every day for 30 days and not posting once in two months. Frankly, neither of those is good for me. I like writing because it clarifies my own thoughts. Sometimes it seems useful to others. I like to be useful (“utility” can...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The anatomy of Andy Spade's style You don’t have to spend a lot to look good; good taste isn’t bound by price. Spade is a testiment to...
6 months ago
33
6 months ago
You don’t have to spend a lot to look good; good taste isn’t bound by price. Spade is a testiment to this, while he’s a successful businessman. He sticks to his affordable, all-American classics. I'm somewhat entering my uniform years. I've come around to clothes that feel...
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...
7 months ago
59
7 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...
Steven Scrawls
Quicksilver and Clay Quicksilver and Clay Like everyone else, I walk around the world in a body made of quicksilver and...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Quicksilver and Clay Like everyone else, I walk around the world in a body made of quicksilver and clay. The pieces of my body—my sense of humor, my beliefs, my opinions and artistic sensibilities and worldviews, everything—combine to present a cohesive self to be...
The Marginalian
How to Say Goodbye: An Illustrated Field Guide to Accompanying a Loved One at the End of Life "If you don't know what to say, start by saying that... That opens things up."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Feels Like Coming Home The wonders of the coastal redwood The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
40
10 months ago
The wonders of the coastal redwood The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Books finished in April 2023 I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long...
over a year ago
88
over a year ago
I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long overdue loot at Seneca's plays, a glance at Gide's Counterfeiters, and some messing around with Plato's Republic. If I did not write in April, I at least read: GREEK PHILOSOPHY The...
Ben Borgers
The Day Should End at 3am
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Kierkegaard on the Value of Despair "To despair over oneself, in despair to want to be rid of oneself, is the formula for all despair."
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Everything-Except-Book Review Contest 2025 ...
4 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Foursquare Open Source Places: A new foundational dataset for the geospatial community It is reasonable to ask, why a company like Foursquare who has spent years building a proprietary...
7 months ago
20
7 months ago
It is reasonable to ask, why a company like Foursquare who has spent years building a proprietary dataset would freely open a layer of that data to the community. So reasonable in fact that many of my colleagues thought I had lost my mind when I shared the news that we would be...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Lovely Lightness of Spirit' My understanding of “deliquescing” goes back to high-school chemistry: a solid melts or becomes...
5 months ago
19
5 months ago
My understanding of “deliquescing” goes back to high-school chemistry: a solid melts or becomes liquid by absorbing moisture from the air. Kay Ryan uses the word in an unexpectedly metaphorical way in her review of This Craft of Verse (2002), a transcript of the lectures Jorge...
Wuthering...
The Best Books of 2024 For the last year and a half I read short books, mostly, which was psychologically satisfying and...
a year ago
60
a year ago
For the last year and a half I read short books, mostly, which was psychologically satisfying and anyway necessary to fit the available energy and concentration.  Now, though, back on my feet, I hope, I am ready to read long books again. Long, and I mean it, like Rebecca West’s...
The American Scholar
Battle Hymns Charles Ives and the Civil War The post Battle Hymns appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The American Scholar
“The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers appeared first on The...
5 months ago
46
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Dream Big, and Build Optionality We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location independent living, being wealthy/choosing to do work that interests you, enjoying “simple” things. The list could go on, and on, and on. But then we go right along doing all the normal...
Naz Hamid
Goodbye, Instagram Thanks for the memories, but good riddance. I deleted Instagram. Two days ago. The reasons are as...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
Thanks for the memories, but good riddance. I deleted Instagram. Two days ago. The reasons are as you would expect: doomscrolling, fatigue, vapidness, and of course, all of the horrifying[1] things Meta enables. Concerning Instagram itself, the list is long. The app started...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But Man Is Not Born for Happiness' “[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
“[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and neglected poet, come to this conclusion? In a letter to Rev. John Newton, written March 15, 1784, Cowper tells his friend he has just finished reading the eight volumes of Dr....
This Space
39 Books: 2004 Bought for an eye-watering £13 in the LRB Bookshop three months before this blog began, Once Again...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Bought for an eye-watering £13 in the LRB Bookshop three months before this blog began, Once Again for Thucydides is another example in this series of how a book of under 100 pages can be worth as much as any number of maximalist breeze blocks. But do I really want to make such...
sbensu
Creative kernels Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Travel Is No Cure for the Mind Who we are inside a venue matters far more than the venue itself. Instead of having the wanderlust...
6 months ago
19
6 months ago
Who we are inside a venue matters far more than the venue itself. Instead of having the wanderlust of travel guide our search for meaning, we have to look within and embrace the only thing that is present now. The only thing that actually exists today. — Lawrence Yeo I do love...
The Elysian
Deep-research an article with me A six-week workshop for writers.
5 months ago
The Elysian
Digital nomads could create network states Here's how.
2 months ago
The Elysian
An American case for building new cities We need to remember how to build things.
3 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On AI Geoguessr ...
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Deliberative Alignment, And The Spec ...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
“Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The...
11 months ago
37
11 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Marginalia: Search Engine This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to...
7 months ago
20
7 months ago
This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. More like this, please. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Astral Codex Ten
Ask Me Anything (2/2025) ...
5 months ago
Ben Borgers
Recording Screencasts
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser appeared first on The...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Dark Sky
over a year ago
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
16
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...
Wuthering...
Daryl Hine's Ovid's Heroines - I, who could a dragon hypnotize An anti-Valentine’s Day book now, Ovid’s Heroides (25-16 BCE, somewhere in there), a collection of...
a year ago
43
a year ago
An anti-Valentine’s Day book now, Ovid’s Heroides (25-16 BCE, somewhere in there), a collection of fictional letters in verse written by mythical heroines to their no-good boyfriends and husbands.  Many end in suicide.  Dido castigating Aeneas, Phaedra mourning...
Ben Borgers
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
over a year ago
The Elysian
Maybe villages are our future—not cities Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of interconnected villages.
Ben Borgers
Couch Guy
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Preschooler > AI
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Brewed and baked Day 12: Sept 21, 2023 — I am predictable when visiting a reasonably sized city. I look for coffee, a...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Day 12: Sept 21, 2023 — I am predictable when visiting a reasonably sized city. I look for coffee, a juice / smoothie shop, a natural foods store, a sourdough bakery, and a decent restaurant that serves up clean and fresh fare or some local delicacy. St. Louis fortunately checks...
The Marginalian
3 Kinds of Loneliness and 4 Kinds of Forever Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around others (if we are lucky and loved), but die alone; we spend our lives islanded in our one and only human experience — in these particular bodies and minds and circumstances drawn...
The Marginalian
Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated "It began as an almost inaudible hum..."
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
16
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...
The Marginalian
The First Scientist’s Guide to Truth: Alhazen on Critical Thinking Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–c. 1040), known in the West as Alhazen, began his life studying religion, but grew quickly disenchanted by its unquestioned dogmas and the way it turned people on each other with...
The Marginalian
Carl Jung on Creativity The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches other lives across space and time — is one of the deepest, oldest questions, perhaps because the answer to it is so unbearably simple: everything. We bring everything we are and...
The Elysian
What my cooperative media ecosystem could look like My vision for a federated nation of independent writer states.
6 months ago
Escaping Flatland
How to think in writing Part 1: The thought behind the thought
a year ago
The Elysian
How we achieve the borderless future of Terra Ignota On Ada Palmer’s utopian sci-fi series and an exploration of how we might bring it to life.
2 months ago
Ben Borgers
Information Distribution
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Naming the garden in The Story of the Stone - the pleasures of incomprehension The older sister of Bao-yu, the boy, now a young teen, who was born with the jade stone in his...
9 months ago
61
9 months ago
The older sister of Bao-yu, the boy, now a young teen, who was born with the jade stone in his mouth, is an Imperial Concubine, a high prestige slave of the Emperor.  She is likely herself still a teen when we learn, in Chapter 16 of The Story of the Stone, that she has been...
The American Scholar
Paige Ledom Out of the ordinary The post Paige Ledom appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The American Scholar
Acting Out One tortuous journey from stage to screen The post Acting Out appeared first on The American...
a year ago
55
a year ago
One tortuous journey from stage to screen The post Acting Out appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Fanaticisms and Factiousnesses Too' “History is not some past from which we are cut off. We are merely at its forward edge as it...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
“History is not some past from which we are cut off. We are merely at its forward edge as it unrolls. And only if one is without historical feeling at all can one think of the intellectual fads and fashions of one’s own time as a ‘habitation everlasting.’ We may feel that at...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 LOW←TECH MAGAZINE This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline. In the same vein as the...
9 months ago
15
9 months ago
This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline. In the same vein as the aforementioned link (Hundred Rabbits), this online magazine (also available offline) is powered by solar. There's a beauty in committing to sustainable methods of your online footprint...
Josh Thompson
Everything I Do and Think I've Read in a Book (or, exploring the relationship between books and... Here’s yet another big post on money and income and saving and reading. I tried to write everything...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Here’s yet another big post on money and income and saving and reading. I tried to write everything on my mind in one massive letter, so I could write a really detailed answer once, rather than a less-useful but less-thoughtful email that I can never reuse. Hey there, I’m...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Buh-bye, Spotify I finally ditched Spotify at the end of 2024. I never loved it, and I felt extra icky about giving...
6 months ago
33
6 months ago
I finally ditched Spotify at the end of 2024. I never loved it, and I felt extra icky about giving them my money ever since they had no trouble finding $250 million for the sham supplement salesman and douchebag magnet Joe Rogan, despite their inability to promote or pay the vast...
The Elysian
We're writing a better future into existence A media collective imagining the future of nation-states, capitalism, and humanity.
6 months ago
The Marginalian
Henry James on Losing a Mother "These are hours of exquisite pain; thank Heaven this particular pang comes to us but once."
over a year ago
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...
Ben Borgers
Heart Reacts
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Eva Decker Eva Decker is a designer engineer who likes playing piano and writing CSS. Currently living in NYC...
11 months ago
13
11 months ago
Eva Decker is a designer engineer who likes playing piano and writing CSS. Currently living in NYC with Samwise. — Eva Decker Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Ben Borgers
Stubborn Consistency [100 daily blog posts]
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Glass Filled With a Supersaturate Solution' “[S]he is one of the few truly compelling stylists now at work. Her voice is authoritative,...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
“[S]he is one of the few truly compelling stylists now at work. Her voice is authoritative, confident, unfussy, exacting. She is never overtly confessional, which sets her apart from many poets writing since the Romantics. She makes rare company.”  And isn’t that what we look for...
Ben Borgers
Did MCAS Matter?
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Pluto was 2006??
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'But No One Style, I Think, is Recommended' A reader tells me of her disgust with most insects and reptiles, the small creatures, almost...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
A reader tells me of her disgust with most insects and reptiles, the small creatures, almost domestic, that surround us. She resents the “nature sentimentality” such “vermin” rouse in some people. They “make [her] skin crawl,” she writes – an idiom I’ve always found amusing....
Josh Thompson
Success is not support We did a high-level “Customer Success” overview yesterday. Today, lets contrast customer support and...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
We did a high-level “Customer Success” overview yesterday. Today, lets contrast customer support and customer success. Support vs. Success First, what’s the difference between “customer support” and “customer success”? Lincoln Murphey says: Customer Success is proactively working...
The Marginalian
What Makes a Compassionate World: Sophie de Grouchy’s Visionary 18th-Century Appeal to Parents and... The morning after the 2016 presidential election, I awoke to terrifying flashbacks of my childhood...
a year ago
61
a year ago
The morning after the 2016 presidential election, I awoke to terrifying flashbacks of my childhood under a totalitarian dictatorship. Desperate for assurance that the future need not hold the total moral collapse of democracy, I reached out to my eldest friend for perspective....
Ben Borgers
“21” by Patrick Roche
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared...
10 months ago
40
10 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Technologically Content My iPhone 14 Pro is paid off. I've been on the iPhone Upgrade Program since it debuted but decided...
9 months ago
9
9 months ago
My iPhone 14 Pro is paid off. I've been on the iPhone Upgrade Program since it debuted but decided to skip last year's 15. This year's 16, while initially tempting in theory, has actively persuaded me to skip it again, likely until I need a new phone. I design mobile apps. It's...
Naz Hamid
Barbara “Nuggie” Schuetz-Hamid Rest in peace little one. I never would have guessed that a 4-lb Chihuahua would come into our...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
Rest in peace little one. I never would have guessed that a 4-lb Chihuahua would come into our lives, let alone be the animal to steal my heart before Jen’s. Our previous animals — two cats and a Boxer dog — are a stark contrast to a tiny dog that we would carry around in a sling...
This Space
The last novel "(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)" John Self's aside in his...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
"(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)" John Self's aside in his review of JM Coetzee's The Death of Jesus captures the pervasive anxiety experienced while reading this novel better than even the most detailed plot summary, which is anyway likely...
Josh Thompson
Use an Alarm to Go to Bed Ironically, this is about going to bed early. See, it’s 10:40p, and I’m getting up tomorrow at 6:00....
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Ironically, this is about going to bed early. See, it’s 10:40p, and I’m getting up tomorrow at 6:00. So I’m looking at about 7 hours of sleep. This is perfect. But, that is only if I’m asleep in the next twenty minutes. I know how long it takes to get ready to leave in the...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Type Design Resources A growing, public, collaborative collection of type design resources. Everything from learning the...
8 months ago
13
8 months ago
A growing, public, collaborative collection of type design resources. Everything from learning the basics to running your own foundry. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry That Nobody Nowadays Reads' Once I patronized a library book sale where volumes were sold not by age, condition, whether...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Once I patronized a library book sale where volumes were sold not by age, condition, whether paperback or hard cover, and certainly not by literary worth but by weight. On the table by the exit was a scale, the flat-topped sort associated with butcher shops. The arrangement was a...
The American Scholar
The Next New Thing In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The...
a year ago
47
a year ago
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The post The Next New Thing appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Perry Bible...
Turn That Frown The post Turn That Frown appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
Waking Up Early, Part 3 I’ve written about my attempts to wake up early before. Most recently, I promised to take a sleep...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I’ve written about my attempts to wake up early before. Most recently, I promised to take a sleep log, to track trends. Fortunately, I did not intend to try to wake up early, because I didn’t. Here’s what I learned in the last three weeks: Benadryl messes with your ability to...
This Space
No safe landing A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici   Gabriel Josipovici has said that...
9 months ago
83
9 months ago
A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici   Gabriel Josipovici has said that as a critic he is conservative but as a novelist he is radical. The second claim may not be controversial but the first will come as a surprise to those who remember what he said...
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...
3 months ago
38
3 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...
Josh Thompson
How I take notes, AKA 'Add an Index to Your Notebook' A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep well-organized notes on a range of topics. Here's my current notebook, indexed by category: pic.twitter.com/aVsNnGPEpd — Josh Thompson (@josh_works) May 8, 2017 Since then, I occasionally...
The American Scholar
The Fair Fields Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous...
7 months ago
27
7 months ago
Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil The post The Fair Fields appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Free speech in the age of social media A discussion about misinformation, echo chambers, media spin, social trolling, and how we can create...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
A discussion about misinformation, echo chambers, media spin, social trolling, and how we can create something better.
Josh Thompson
Give it 30 days Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish? If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish? If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what were your goals? Lose weight/get in shape Make more money/start budgeting Learn a language Learn a skill Read more Stop doing something (smoking, drinking) Statistically, all of...
Josh Thompson
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
15
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.”...
Astral Codex Ten
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2025 - Call For Organizers ...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
Part of the Parade The post Part of the Parade appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The American Scholar
American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King The late, great Paul Auster on Stephen Crane The post American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King appeared...
a year ago
53
a year ago
The late, great Paul Auster on Stephen Crane The post American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
The end of literature, part four This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain and France declaring war on Germany. Not that the coincidence means much. At least, no more than what the general population, interest and powerful mean here, or indeed what poetry...
Ben Borgers
iPad Impatience
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Is Always Summer, Always the Golden Hour' I fight the urge to wallow in nostalgia but it seeps back in like moisture in an unfinished...
4 days ago
5
4 days ago
I fight the urge to wallow in nostalgia but it seeps back in like moisture in an unfinished basement. I take that image from my childhood home. The walls and floor were bare concrete. Stacks of newspaper and lumber felt flesh-like with dampness. Down there it was always chilly,...
The American Scholar
Drops in a Bucket The post Drops in a Bucket appeared first on The American Scholar.
11 months ago
The American Scholar
Island Royalty A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
24
7 months ago
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Information of a High School Janitor' A former colleague reminded me of the babysitting job I was given by a newspaper editor some...
a month ago
13
a month ago
A former colleague reminded me of the babysitting job I was given by a newspaper editor some forty years ago. I was the court reporter, covering every level from city police court to the New York Court of Appeals, plus the federal court in the beautiful Art Deco building on...
Josh Thompson
Save hundreds by being willing to spend $20 When you pack for a trip, you pack “just in case” items, right? Things that in a certain situation...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
When you pack for a trip, you pack “just in case” items, right? Things that in a certain situation would be priceless. Think “umbrella” or “underpants”. But then you think of all the possible situations you might encounter, and you’ll find your “just in case” items quickly...
This Space
39 Books: 2007 When I chose the book for 2007, the constraint of the 39 Books series presented a problem: how can I...
a year ago
97
a year ago
When I chose the book for 2007, the constraint of the 39 Books series presented a problem: how can I write about a 350-page novel last read 17 years ago without taking several days to reread it? Answer: not at all, so I started reading. What good fortune! How well Hugo Wilcken...
The Marginalian
Twenty Ways to Matter The two great tasks of the creative life are keeping failure from breaking the spirit and keeping...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
The two great tasks of the creative life are keeping failure from breaking the spirit and keeping success from ossifying it. If you do attain success by the weft and warp of hard work and luck, it takes great courage to resist becoming a template of yourself that replicates...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Welcome to the Dragon Moon This mini-site serves as companion to Moonbound, the new novel by Robin Sloan, published by...
12 months ago
10
12 months ago
This mini-site serves as companion to Moonbound, the new novel by Robin Sloan, published by MCD×FSG. — Robin Sloan Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The American Scholar
A Terrifying Delight Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Electrons That Bind The molecule at the center of everything The post Electrons That Bind appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
13
4 months ago
The molecule at the center of everything The post Electrons That Bind appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
An Eye for Design
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Deliberate Practice in Programming with Avdi Grimm and the Rake gem I’ve had the concept of Deliberate Practice stuck in my head for a while. I want to improve at...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’ve had the concept of Deliberate Practice stuck in my head for a while. I want to improve at things (all the things!) in general, but writing and reading code, specifically. Writing and reading code is germane to my primary occupation (software developer) and drives most of my...
Ben Borgers
Hash Tables [explained for anyone]
over 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shaping Tombs in Words' Catharine Savage Brosman describes her late husband, Patric Savage, like this:  “I am bereft   “of...
2 months ago
27
2 months ago
Catharine Savage Brosman describes her late husband, Patric Savage, like this:  “I am bereft   “of curator, you see, of one who cared tremendously— for books, for me—but would have sacrificed the whole collection for my sake.”   The poem is “Pat Curating His Library” (Arm in Arm,...
Robert Caro
Robert Caro Reflects on ‘The Power Broker’ and Its Legacy at 50 NEW YORK TIMES: Caro’s book on Robert Moses is also a reflection on “the dangers of unchecked...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
NEW YORK TIMES: Caro’s book on Robert Moses is also a reflection on “the dangers of unchecked power,” and remains more relevant than ever.
Josh Thompson
Migrating my Jekyll site to Netlify Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in like 10 minutes, so my primary site, josh.works, should take maybe 20, right? I’m a few hours deep. Here’s what I get when Netlify tries to build: I should have done the following...
Ben Borgers
Why I Love Laravel
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Burned The post Burned appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The American Scholar
Downstream of Fukushima The Japanese seafood industry has rebounded, but is anyone worried about irradiated water? The post...
a year ago
90
a year ago
The Japanese seafood industry has rebounded, but is anyone worried about irradiated water? The post Downstream of Fukushima appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Friends Don't Let Friends Shortrope The first in a series about how to be a better belayer. Short rope [shawrt-rohp] verb The act of...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
The first in a series about how to be a better belayer. Short rope [shawrt-rohp] verb The act of not giving sufficient rope to your climber. Getting short roped is bad. It’s not necessarily dangerous, nor does it cause you to take a whip (it can, of course) but the real reason...
Naz Hamid
Kin The third culture difference. One of the hardest aspects of being a third culture kid and eventually...
2 months ago
131
2 months ago
The third culture difference. One of the hardest aspects of being a third culture kid and eventually adult is the difficulty in the journey of your identity. When you're young, the movement and culture- and context-switching are par for the course — it comes with the literal...
This Space
The enigma for criticism To this day, I can learn only from bad films. The good ones I watch in the same spirit in which I...
a year ago
55
a year ago
To this day, I can learn only from bad films. The good ones I watch in the same spirit in which I watched when I was a kid. The great ones, even when I see them many times, are just an enigma.  Werner Herzog describes a few "bad films" in his autobiography, all from his...
The American Scholar
After the Fallout On jellyfish babies, my father’s pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific The post...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
On jellyfish babies, my father’s pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific The post After the Fallout appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Blessed to be Sick Yesterday, I wrote about reducing work hours to less than 40 hours a week. Yesterday, I was...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Yesterday, I wrote about reducing work hours to less than 40 hours a week. Yesterday, I was struggling to be engaged in my work. I was easily distracted, and didn’t feel very efficient during the day. Once I identified the tasks I needed to complete before I could walk away from...
Steven Scrawls
Maybe your desires are delusional Maybe your desires are delusional The vast majority of my desires are not the reasonable desires...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Maybe your desires are delusional The vast majority of my desires are not the reasonable desires that I had once believed them to be. They’re actually completely delusional desires dressed up in shoddy “reasonable desire” costumes, and I’ve just been pretending not to notice. How...
The Marginalian
The Wanting Monster: An Almost Unbearably Tender Illustrated Spell Against the Curse of Not Enough Wanting is the menacing margin of error between desire and need. It is the blade that vivisects your...
a month ago
16
a month ago
Wanting is the menacing margin of error between desire and need. It is the blade that vivisects your serenity, the hammer that shatters your wholeness — to want anything is to deem your life incomplete without it. It is a perpetual motion machine that keeps you restlessly...
Blog -...
Book Review - Zen in the Art of Archery Zen in the Art of Archery is described by John Stevens in his book Zen Bow, Zen Arrow as likely...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Zen in the Art of Archery is described by John Stevens in his book Zen Bow, Zen Arrow as likely being the most popular book about Japanese culture and martial arts ever. This is a bold statement I cannot contest, having read only three other books about Zen: the...
The Marginalian
Joy as a Force of Resistance and a Halo of Loss, with a Nick Cave Song and a Lisel Mueller Poem In this world heavy with robust reasons for despair, joy is a stubborn courage we must not...
10 months ago
60
10 months ago
In this world heavy with robust reasons for despair, joy is a stubborn courage we must not surrender, a fulcrum of personal power we must not yield to cynicism, blame, or any other costume of helplessness. “Experience of conflict and a load of suffering has taught me that what...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rivian — Pentagram A custom typeface for the American electric vehicle manufacturer reflects its spirit of innovation...
8 months ago
16
8 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 Elysian
Week 6: Examples of Pitches
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Bolt of Inspiration Strikes Invariably' “Inspiration is perhaps merely the joy of writing: it does not precede writing.” A student and...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
“Inspiration is perhaps merely the joy of writing: it does not precede writing.” A student and aspiring fiction writer wonders why I seldom refer to “inspiration.” What is it? Do I deny its existence? Have certain writers successfully relied on it? Can he? My answer is yes and...
The Marginalian
How to Get Out of Your Own Way: John Berryman on Defeating the Three Demons of Creative Work John Allyn Smith, Jr. was eleven when, early one morning in the interlude between two world wars,...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
John Allyn Smith, Jr. was eleven when, early one morning in the interlude between two world wars, not long after his parents had filed for divorce, he was awakened by a loud bang beneath his bedroom window. He looked to see his father dead by his own gun. Within months, his...
The Elysian
Social Development > Self-Development We need one much more than the other.
6 months ago
sbensu
The battlefield where arguments fight A lot of speech is about convincing others of what type of arguments have merit
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Arguers: A Charming Illustrated Parable about the Absurdity of Self-righteousness Perhaps the most perilous consequence of uncertain times, times that hurl us into helplessness and...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Perhaps the most perilous consequence of uncertain times, times that hurl us into helplessness and disorientation, is that they turn human beings into opinion machines. We dope our pain and confusion with false certainties that stifle the willingness to understand (the nuances of...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 358 ...
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
Quick Dive into React As usual, this is a work in progress. At a high level, I’m familiarizing myself with Phoenix/Elixir,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
As usual, this is a work in progress. At a high level, I’m familiarizing myself with Phoenix/Elixir, and need to sharpen my React knowledge along the way. After working through part 1 of a slack clone in Elixir/Phoenix tutorial, I ran into some errors getting the React app up and...
Josh Thompson
HTTParty and to_json I was having some trouble debugging an HTTParty POST request. A few tools that were useful to...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I was having some trouble debugging an HTTParty POST request. A few tools that were useful to me: post DEBUG info to STDOUT netcat to listen to HTTP requests locally I had this code: options = { headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json", authorization: "Bearer...
The American Scholar
This Woman’s Work Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism The post This Woman’s Work appeared...
9 months ago
42
9 months ago
Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism The post This Woman’s Work appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
"Socrates gone mad" - my hero Diogenes the Cynic He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing else, and was a sarcastic pain in the...
a year ago
28
a year ago
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing else, and was a sarcastic pain in the ass.  He took the example of Socrates to its limit.  Plato is the one who called him “Socrates gone mad,” but in a sense he is just the logical result of thinking through how Socrates...
The American Scholar
Turning the World to Powder Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder...
a year ago
74
a year ago
Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
"When now?" Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on social media and literary podcasts, and have appeared multiple times in newspaper Books of the Year choices and on prize shortlists, and one that even won a prize. I wanted to see...
Ben Borgers
Google Won the Kids
over a year ago
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
Ben Borgers
Productivity YouTubers
over a year ago
Robert Caro
Misery Acres: An Investigative Series Perhaps Caro’s most influential work during his years at Newsday was the investigative series,...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Perhaps Caro’s most influential work during his years at Newsday was the investigative series, “Misery Acres,” a withering expose of fraud.
Astral Codex Ten
Take The 2025 ACX Survey ...
6 months ago
The American Scholar
“Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Ben-Edit
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
2018 Reading Review & Recommendations I read many books in 2018. I’m listing them out here, along with recommendations. Here’s the...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I read many books in 2018. I’m listing them out here, along with recommendations. Here’s the recommendation “key”: 👍 = I recommend this book. (This metric is intentionally fuzzy.) 😔 = This book influenced my mental model of the world/reality/myself 🏢 = Book topic is...
Wuthering...
Two novels titled Attila - Maximal words striving to breach an angel I will write about two newly published translations of Spanish novels that comprise an amusing stunt...
2 months ago
15
2 months ago
I will write about two newly published translations of Spanish novels that comprise an amusing stunt by Open Letter Books.  They are Attila by Aliocha Coll (1991) and Attila by Javier Serena (2014), both translated by Katie Whittemore.  Coll’s Attila is a Finnegans...
Wuthering...
Readalongs I wish someone else would organize - Cuban literature, August Wilson plays, and many more The glory days of book blogs were full of “challenges.”  I hosted several: Scottish literature,...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
The glory days of book blogs were full of “challenges.”  I hosted several: Scottish literature, Italian, Austrian, Scandinavian, Portuguese, always limited to the 19th century and earlier to keep the scope manageable.  The idea was that I read a lot, while others were invited to...
The Marginalian
Of Stars, Seagulls, and Love: Loren Eiseley on the First and Final Truth of Life Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people,...
11 months ago
77
11 months ago
Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people, and yet all personal love is but a fractal of a larger universal love. Some call it God. I call it wonder. Dante called it “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe ...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
“Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson appeared first on The...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
RealMoji
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Truck Camping is Here to Eat Van Life's Lunch We’re reaching the tipping point of an oversaturated custom sprinter van market. There are hundreds...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
We’re reaching the tipping point of an oversaturated custom sprinter van market. There are hundreds of brands all attempting to do very similar things at scale, as if they’re late to the overbuilt expensive van party. Customer interest feels like it is swinging back to simplicity...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Absolute Anthology' The American poet Len Krisak asks a question common to all serious readers, one that, if...
6 days ago
7
6 days ago
The American poet Len Krisak asks a question common to all serious readers, one that, if posed privately, serves as an honest way to reveal one’s deeper tastes without the social pressures of fashion and snobbery. Think of it as a variation on the “Desert Island” parlor game. It...
The Marginalian
Practical Mysticism: Evelyn Underhill’s Stunning Century-Old Manifesto for Secular Transcendence and... "Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels;...
over a year ago
94
over a year ago
"Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they misrepresent."
Wuthering...
The appeal of Septology as religious fiction - the urge, inexplicably, to pray - because it helps!... Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional...
8 months ago
48
8 months ago
Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional punctuation, and temporal shifts, meaning the painter Asle is sometimes thinking about the present and sometimes about the past.  These are all old moves, old techniques.  I was a...
Astral Codex Ten
How Did You Do On The AI Art Turing Test? ...
7 months ago
The Marginalian
A Shelter in Time: John Berger on the Power of Music "Songs are like rivers: each follows its own course, yet all flow to the sea, from which everything...
over a year ago
sbensu
The Market for Takes Solving for the Twitter equilibrium
11 months ago
The American Scholar
Tramping With Virginia A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of...
a year ago
88
a year ago
A seminal essay about walking the streets of London can present challenges in the classrooms of today The post Tramping With Virginia appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Flowers for Things I Don’t Know How to Say: A Tender Painted Lexicon of Consolation and Connection “To be a Flower is profound Responsibility,” Emily Dickinson wrote. From the moment she pressed the...
a year ago
92
a year ago
“To be a Flower is profound Responsibility,” Emily Dickinson wrote. From the moment she pressed the first wildflower into her astonishing teenage herbarium until the moment Susan pinned a violet to her alabaster chest in the casket, she filled her poems with flowers and made of...
The American Scholar
Unbuilding the Mystery What might Indigenous spiritual practices have in common? The post Unbuilding the Mystery appeared...
a month ago
4
a month ago
What might Indigenous spiritual practices have in common? The post Unbuilding the Mystery appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler on Religion and the Spirituality of Symbiosis "On many levels, we wind up being strengthened by what we join, or what joins us, as well as by what...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep appendix: Troubleshooting Errors Pretty much any time I hear the same question twice, I will try to add a section here for it, and...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Pretty much any time I hear the same question twice, I will try to add a section here for it, and make it as findable by future students as possible. Do you have a question not answered here? PLEASE send me a DM in Slack or @ me (I’m josh_t in the Turing slack). I’ll take a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Attempt But Little At a Time' A blog turns out to be an education undertaken in public. Its proprietor is more student than...
5 months ago
19
5 months ago
A blog turns out to be an education undertaken in public. Its proprietor is more student than teacher, and one is fortunate to encounter numerous tutors along the way, between the covers of books and out there in the bigger world. I seldom sit down at the keyboard with the goal...
This Space
Favourite books 2022 This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable...
over a year ago
77
over a year ago
This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable books of the year lists, though I enjoyed those not included in this selection. Jon Fosse – Septology Thomas Bernhard – The Rest is Slander "we are concealing a secret, a secret...
The American Scholar
Something New in the West Kurt Beals on translating All Quiet on the Western Front The post Something New in the West appeared...
4 months ago
29
4 months ago
Kurt Beals on translating All Quiet on the Western Front The post Something New in the West appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
I Touched the Sun: A Tender Illustrated Parable About How to Find and Bear Your Inner Light “One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives...
a year ago
63
a year ago
“One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light,” James Baldwin wrote in one of his finest, least known essays. In his exquisite memoir of the search for inner light, the blind resistance hero...
The Marginalian
Don’t Waste Your Greening Life-Force: Hildegard’s Prophetic Enchanted Ecology The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and...
6 months ago
51
6 months ago
The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and the printing press have not been invented. Earth is the center of the universe, encircled by heavenly bodies whose motions are ministered by angels. Most people never live past...
Ben Borgers
Strong Hobbies
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ I Don't Have Facebook I don’t have an account with the big blue F. It’s 2015. The social network is almost 11 years old....
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
I don’t have an account with the big blue F. It’s 2015. The social network is almost 11 years old. It’s remarkable — over a decade in existence and, mostly, still going strong. I read about it a lot. I have friends who work there. I have been recruited and asked by the same...
Escaping Flatland
Thinking about perceptiveness links
11 months ago
The Perry Bible...
Hacked The post Hacked appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a year ago
The American Scholar
The Baritone as Democrat How Lawrence Tibbett prophesied the Metropolitan Opera crisis of today The post The Baritone as...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
How Lawrence Tibbett prophesied the Metropolitan Opera crisis of today The post The Baritone as Democrat appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
As I Walked Out One Morning The post As I Walked Out One Morning appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Ben Borgers
Website redesign, December 2022
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Miss Loved Ones Better: The Psychology of Waiting and Withstanding Absence On "the capacity to bear frustration without turning against one’s needy self, or against the person...
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Do you miss Twitter? Twitter remained fun for a bit after that, but it became harder to ignore that there was a dark...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Twitter remained fun for a bit after that, but it became harder to ignore that there was a dark cloud emerging. And that for people that didn’t look like me, that cloud might’ve always been there. — Mike Monteiro Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Balancing Tools and Culture A few weeks ago, a timely project at work rallied almost everyone to be “all hands on deck.” My...
a year ago
12
a year ago
A few weeks ago, a timely project at work rallied almost everyone to be “all hands on deck.” My immediate team uses Slack, having transitioned away from another longstanding project management platform [1]. The larger team has used this platform for years, and it contains a...
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
17
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...
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
55
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
The Marginalian
The Other Significant Others: Living and Loving Outside the Confines of Conventional Friendship and... "While we weaken friendships by expecting too little of them, we undermine romantic relationships by...
a year ago
The Elysian
Asia and the future of the nation state A discussion with Benjamin Perry.
8 months ago
The American Scholar
Facts of the Case The post Facts of the Case appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
The Patron Subjects Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings? The...
8 months ago
47
8 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.
Steven Scrawls
Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Living at Resort ‘Small Village’ of Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Alive, Thriving at Caribbean...
11 months ago
25
11 months ago
‘Small Village’ of Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Alive, Thriving at Caribbean Resort Gabriel Martinez, a 35-year-old confectioner living in the Cayman Islands, thought he was posting a simple promotional photo when he snapped a picture of his ‘cocoa-banana-surprise’ and...
sbensu
Team-oriented, outcome-oriented Some people care about helping their team. Others care about achieving outcomes. It is important to...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Some people care about helping their team. Others care about achieving outcomes. It is important to know who is who.
The American Scholar
Rage, Muse The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or...
11 months ago
73
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.
Wuthering...
What I read in January 2025 - You must understand that truth is fiction, and fiction truth. Farewell to The Story of the Stone and a valuable browse in Chinese literature.  I’ll do it again...
5 months ago
37
5 months ago
Farewell to The Story of the Stone and a valuable browse in Chinese literature.  I’ll do it again someday. FICTION The Peony Pavilion (1598), Tang Xianzu – written up back here. The Story of the Stone, Vol. 5: The Dreamer Wakes (c. 1760), Cao Xueqin & Gao E – some notes here. ...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 WebGlossary.info As per the official description, “the glossary covers the major standards and concepts of the Web,...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
As per the official description, “the glossary covers the major standards and concepts of the Web, beginning with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, accessibility, security, performance, code quality and testing, internationalization, localization, frameworks and editors and tooling. It then...
Josh Thompson
A New Old Financial Product I’m going to weave together talk of land value, and financing, and some of the primitives1 around...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I’m going to weave together talk of land value, and financing, and some of the primitives1 around financial products. How much would you pay for a box that lives in your mailbox and delivers $1000 on the first of every month? Would you pay at least $5000, if you felt really...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ On a Low and a High A few days separate us from our time at Canyon of the Ancients and our last camp from this fall...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
A few days separate us from our time at Canyon of the Ancients and our last camp from this fall trip. After a mangled tale of an ER (mis)visit and a return for refuge at Sage Canyon (this time camping just outside the Workshop Loft — thank you, Grant, for the use of your bathroom...
Josh Thompson
Travel somewhere fun. But first get on Scott's email list Most of us have a bucket list item of “travel abroad”, right? It gets harder to realize once you...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Most of us have a bucket list item of “travel abroad”, right? It gets harder to realize once you start looking through flight prices, though. If you and your significant other want to head to Europe or Asia, you might be dropping $2500, minimum, for the both of you. That’s...
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...
9 months ago
40
9 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.
The American Scholar
Kinship and Contradictions Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and Contradictions appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Schmooze
over a year ago
The Marginalian
An Antidote to the Anxiety About Imperfection: Parenting Advice from Mister Rogers "It’s part of being human to fall short of that total acceptance and ultimate understanding — and...
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Playing with the HTTP send/response cycle in Ruby, without Faraday ("HTTP Yeah You Know Me" project) As part of the HTTP Server project. First, I’m working through Practicing Ruby’s “Implementing an...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
As part of the HTTP Server project. First, I’m working through Practicing Ruby’s “Implementing an HTTP File Server” for general practice and understanding. I’m going to use Postman to capture traffic and try to replicate some of the things the guides reference. Lastly, I just...
Ben Borgers
My Guilt for Useless Things
over a year ago
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
12
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Illustrate With Marginal Notes' I no longer write in books, a decision I made decades ago that I occasionally regret. It came...
a month ago
13
a month ago
I no longer write in books, a decision I made decades ago that I occasionally regret. It came to feel like defacement. But it’s interesting to see what attracted, delighted or puzzled my younger self. Here are the three books on my shelves most heavily underlined and...
Wuthering...
Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz - What I wanted now was the adventure of being... Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to...
over a year ago
61
over a year ago
Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to me because of its unusual use of the Pre-Socratic philosophers.  This is a domestic novel, a fine example of, borrowing from Trollope, the way we live now (or, to me, the way they...
The American Scholar
Keepers of the Old Ways Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive The post Keepers of the Old Ways...
5 months ago
58
5 months ago
Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive The post Keepers of the Old Ways appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Matrescence: The Cellular Science of the Unself One of the most discomposing things about the sense of individuality is the knowledge that although...
4 months ago
39
4 months ago
One of the most discomposing things about the sense of individuality is the knowledge that although there are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives, there is but one way to come alive — through the bloody, sweaty flesh of another; the knowledge that your own flesh is made of...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 358.5 ...
7 months ago
Ben Borgers
I’m a Sucker for the Brand
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Horses” by Edwin Muir Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Horses” by Edwin Muir appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
Escaping Flatland
After AI beat them, professional Go players got better and more creative For many decades, it seemed professional Go players had reached a hard limit on how well it is...
a year ago
The Marginalian
To Be a Person: Jane Hirshfield’s Playful and Poignant Poem About Bearing Our Human Condition "To be a person may be possible then, after all."
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 378 ...
2 months ago
The Marginalian
On Change and Denial "It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to...
a year ago
94
a year ago
"It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to accompany it like birds flocking before a storm."
The American Scholar
Learning to Be Social What might Rousseau teach us about how to live with others? The post Learning to Be Social appeared...
4 months ago
14
4 months ago
What might Rousseau teach us about how to live with others? The post Learning to Be Social appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Delight Between Science and Magic: Euler’s Disk and the Sound of the Singularity One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik found himself so bored that he took a coin out of his pocket and began spinning it atop the table. In a testament to the eternal paradox of boredom and wonder as two sides of the...
Josh Thompson
Make Hard Things Easier by Removing Friction Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes resources (time, energy, money, physical goods.) Anything that causes negative feelings (shame, doubt, guilt, fear.) Anything that could have a downside (losing money, respect, your...
The American Scholar
The Justice Worker Rebecca Sandefur’s mission is to provide help to tens of millions of Americans in solving their...
a month ago
9
a month ago
Rebecca Sandefur’s mission is to provide help to tens of millions of Americans in solving their legal problems The post The Justice Worker appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
38
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Indulge Your Internet Addiction By Reading About Internet Addiction ...
7 months ago
ribbonfarm
News from the Universe I did not expect to see auroras in the Seattle area. Or ever in my life without a special...
a year ago
18
a year ago
I did not expect to see auroras in the Seattle area. Or ever in my life without a special bucket-list effort I had no particular intention of making. Though now I might. It feels a bit like I’ve just seen giraffes in the wild without going to Africa. You’ve probably seen some of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Lawn As White As Driven Snow' Houston’s terrain is geometrically flat, which is why most houses have no basements. From the warmth...
5 months ago
18
5 months ago
Houston’s terrain is geometrically flat, which is why most houses have no basements. From the warmth of my living room I watched a neighborhood kid try to defy gravity, seated on a plastic sled in the middle of the ice-covered street, holding the reins and achieving...
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
14
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Your Point Is to Be Incomplete, Fugitive, Incidental.” “And I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live...
a month ago
19
a month ago
“And I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live in a world that is full of pictures, and incidental divertissements, and amiable absurdities. Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we...