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Escaping Flatland
When writing, look at what you are trying to describe more than at your words 9 reflections
a month ago
Wuthering...
But the Moon rescues others as they swim from below - a glance at the essays and dialogues of... The great ragged Greek philosophy readalong ends with Plutarch, famous for his extraordinary...
a year ago
29
a year ago
The great ragged Greek philosophy readalong ends with Plutarch, famous for his extraordinary Parallel Lives but also the innovative author of a large mass of essays and dialogues which picked up the title Moralia (late 1st C.) along the way.  Plutarch was hardly an original...
This Space
Favourite books 2020 Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone exceeds the number of books I'm able to read in a year let alone the number from which it was presumably narrowed down. This is why I suggested a couple of years ago such pages choose...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Apple Maps on the web launches in beta Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access...
11 months ago
24
11 months ago
Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Robert Caro
Robert Caro on the Art of Biography I was never interested in writing biographies merely to tell the lives of famous men. From the first...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
I was never interested in writing biographies merely to tell the lives of famous men. From the first time I thought of becoming a biographer
The Marginalian
How to Live a Miraculous Life: Brian Doyle on Love, Humility, and the Quiet Grace of the Possible Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably...
7 months ago
61
7 months ago
Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably difficult, even though we know that everything alive is dying, that everything beautiful is perishable, that everything we love will eventually be taken from us by one form of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 How to Monetize a Blog Regardless, if this is the game, we can still be its players. Hats off to you. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Visit...
10 months ago
11
10 months ago
Regardless, if this is the game, we can still be its players. Hats off to you. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Escaping Flatland
Relationships are coevolutionary loops Looking for Alice, part 3
a year ago
Josh Thompson
First five meals from The 4-Hour Chef I don’t know how to cook. Period. My most impressive culinary creations were, until recently,...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I don’t know how to cook. Period. My most impressive culinary creations were, until recently, spaghetti and beans-n-rice. I got married about a year ago, and had hoped that I would become inspired to become a world-class chef. After a long time eating Rice-A-Roni, spaghetti,...
Astral Codex Ten
Why Worry About Incorrigible Claude? ...
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
The Present You It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the present you, or the future you. I...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the present you, or the future you. I wish the future me could sit beside the present me, and discuss how I was going about my day. Instead, it’s a rather one-sided conversation. There are obvious choices, like food,...
The American Scholar
Catalina Schliebener Muñoz Playing with dolls The post Catalina Schliebener Muñoz appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The American Scholar
From Las Cosas Nuevas by Ennio Moltedo The post From <em>Las Cosas Nuevas</em> by Ennio Moltedo appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The American Scholar
The Redoubtable Bull Shark Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: Introducing a blog series In 1985, I read two books. The following year I read a lot more, and it was then I began to keep a...
a year ago
89
a year ago
In 1985, I read two books. The following year I read a lot more, and it was then I began to keep a list of each book I finished. I've kept the list ever since. In this blog series I will choose one book from each of the 39 years and write whatever occurs to me and post whatever...
The Marginalian
Yes: William Stafford’s Poetic Calibration of Perspective "No guarantees in this life."
a year ago
The Marginalian
Mushrooms and Our Search for Meaning This essay was originally published as the cover story in the Summer 2025 issue of Orion Magazine....
a month ago
18
a month ago
This essay was originally published as the cover story in the Summer 2025 issue of Orion Magazine. “Who are you?” the caterpillar barks at Alice from atop the giant mushroom, and Alice, never quite having considered the question, mutters a child’s version of Emily Dickinson’s...
The American Scholar
“Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on...
a year ago
86
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Souls of Animals “They do not sweat and whine about their condition,” Walt Whitman wrote of the other animals, “they...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
“They do not sweat and whine about their condition,” Walt Whitman wrote of the other animals, “they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning...
Ben Borgers
AI is an impediment to learning web development
11 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 377 ...
3 months ago
The Marginalian
3 Kinds of Loneliness and 4 Kinds of Forever Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around others (if we are lucky and loved), but die alone; we spend our lives islanded in our one and only human experience — in these particular bodies and minds and circumstances drawn...
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
Cancer The post Cancer appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
Ben Borgers
Blocks recap
over a year ago
The Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
3 months ago
ben-mini
Modality Switching Online I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail,...
a year ago
18
a year ago
I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail, I roll my eyes. He tends to meander. My dad’s messages can range from 40 seconds to 2 minutes. He typically wants to inform me of something, like an upcoming family event or an...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Why Restaurants Are So Expensive Now, According to Chefs and Restaurant Owners That’s still not quite enough. Because there’s a cultural expectation in America around how much...
10 months ago
18
10 months ago
That’s still not quite enough. Because there’s a cultural expectation in America around how much Vietnamese food should cost, especially if it’s not presented as fine dining. Right now, our bowl of pho is $26. We use chicken from Joyce Farms, and our broth takes three days. But...
The American Scholar
The Power of the Common Soul Ives, music-making, and hope The post The Power of the Common Soul appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dead Simple Sites The most minimal sites on the web, curated in one place. Visit original link → or View on...
a year ago
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
18
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
White Easter The post White Easter appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months 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.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Because the night belongs to us Day 18: Sept 27, 2023 — It’s our last full day. We extend our stay by two additional days due to my...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Day 18: Sept 27, 2023 — It’s our last full day. We extend our stay by two additional days due to my work obligations, so I need to be stationed somewhere. It’s also a good excuse to have extra family time. I have a call with Simon Collison to discuss True Ventures design work and...
Josh Thompson
Why I Eat Bacon Every Day (And You Should Too) note: as of late 2017, I’ve rolled over to a mostly vegetarian diet. I still love meat, but don’t...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
note: as of late 2017, I’ve rolled over to a mostly vegetarian diet. I still love meat, but don’t feel comfortable eating it, for ethical reasons. I still believe that, on a whole, bacon is good for you, and I still eat veggies and many eggs every day. I just don’t eat bacon or...
The Marginalian
The Bird in the Heart: Terry Tempest Williams on the Paradox of Transformation and How to Live with... "We can change, evolve, and transform our own conditioning. We can choose to move like water rather...
a year ago
The Elysian
Multi-country civilizations are good, actually A vibe shift in favor of annexation would be counterproductive 🌏
3 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Threaded I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time...
a year ago
10
a year ago
I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time ago. I don’t find it particularly useful, as my Twitter usage had declined long ago. Anyway, the post (and accompanying photo): “When I contemplate the idea of relocating, it’s 70°...
Escaping Flatland
Authenticity as dialogue John Stuart Mill, notetaking, rationality, and emotion
7 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Why Recurring Dream Themes? ...
5 months ago
The American Scholar
“He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first...
a year ago
86
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
William James on Love "If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms...
a year ago
50
a year ago
"If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the creature loved."
Astral Codex Ten
The Innocent And The Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time ...
7 months ago
Naz Hamid
Goodbye, Instagram Thanks for the memories, but good riddance. I deleted Instagram. Two days ago. The reasons are as...
4 months ago
44
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Testing AI's GeoGuessr Genius Seeing a world in a grain of sand
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Meeting the Muse at the Edge of the Light: Poet Gary Snyder on Craftsmanship vs. Creative Force It is tempting, because we make everything we make with everything we are, to take our creative...
4 months ago
36
4 months ago
It is tempting, because we make everything we make with everything we are, to take our creative potency for a personal merit. It is also tempting when we find ourselves suddenly impotent, as all artists regularly do, to blame the block on a fickle muse and rue ourselves abandoned...
The Marginalian
Reworldling Humanity: E.B. White’s Magnificent 1943 Response to a Politician Who Wanted to Make the... On September 11, 1943, E.B. White (July 11, 1899–October 1, 1985) reported on the pages of The New...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
On September 11, 1943, E.B. White (July 11, 1899–October 1, 1985) reported on the pages of The New Yorker that Clarence Buddhington Kelland — a writer prolific and popular in his lifetime, now forgotten, onetime executive director of the Republican National Committee, described...
Josh Thompson
How To Procfile: Run Just a Single Process Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile: web: PORT=3000...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile: web: PORT=3000 RAILS_ENV=development bundle exec puma -C ./config/puma_development.rb -e development devlog: tail -f ./log/development.log mailcatcher: ruby -rbundler/setup -e...
Astral Codex Ten
You Can Keep Having An Opinion Even When The Government Also Has It ...
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
On Minimalism I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance...
over a year ago
20
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...
Josh Thompson
Planned Unit Design Document (work-in-progress) This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something we bring to the City of Golden for ratification, or whatever needs to happen to get this done in this zone. This document relates to Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the...
The Marginalian
The Shape of Wonder: N.J. Berrill on the Universe, the Deepest Meaning of Beauty, and the Highest... "We, each of us, you and I, exhibit more of the true nature of the universe than any dead Saturn or...
10 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 1989 Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on...
a year ago
56
a year ago
Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on TV and in newspapers, but in 1989 I read Alexander Stuart's The War Zone that did exactly that. It was later made into a controversial film. The only thing I remember of the...
Josh Thompson
Circles of Influence I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write about, or you’ve hit a block, write about something that angers you. This is easy. I could write about any number of things that we’ve all read in a newspaper, and get good and angry...
Ben Borgers
Draft Now, Publish Later
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
My Stress is an Inside Job
over a year ago
The Elysian
Companies are the new City-States That’s why we need to build better ones.
5 months ago
Ben Borgers
The Magic of the Common Room
over a year 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...
6 months ago
46
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Bubble Girl The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American...
a year ago
87
a year ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Input metrics vs. Output metrics It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something. If you’re working on any...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
It’s tempting to track results, when trying to accomplish something. If you’re working on any project of sufficient size, the results will come slowly, fitfully, and sometimes not at all. So, don’t track results, track your efforts. (Yes, how very American of me. I don’t believe...
Josh Thompson
Quotes from 'Spare the Child' Introduction Here’s quotes from Spare the Child: The Religeous Roots of Punishment and the...
5 months ago
25
5 months ago
Introduction Here’s quotes from Spare the Child: The Religeous Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse, by Philip Greven. It was written in 1989, same year I was born, 35 years ago as of 2025. It’s sometimes nice to be able to share quotes with people....
Robert Caro
The Power Broker Book Club The “99% Invisible Breakdown” podcast spent a year reading The Power Broker with guests Conan...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
The “99% Invisible Breakdown” podcast spent a year reading The Power Broker with guests Conan O’Brien, Robert Caro, and others.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Expanding in Edale I’ve been making things in response to this place since my teens, most notably as a young visual...
12 months ago
19
12 months ago
I’ve been making things in response to this place since my teens, most notably as a young visual artist and again now, having reconnected with that wide-eyed younger version of myself. — Simon Collison Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Marginalian
Are You Living a Fairy Tale, a Novel, or a Poem? When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death,...
11 months ago
91
11 months ago
When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death, an abandonment, a promise broken, a kindness withheld — we tend to cope in one of two ways: We question our own sanity, assuming the outside world coherent and our response a form...
The American Scholar
Asteroid Hunters The scientists and engineers who defend our planet day and night from potentially hazardous space...
4 months ago
16
4 months ago
The scientists and engineers who defend our planet day and night from potentially hazardous space rocks The post Asteroid Hunters appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Jason Middlebrook Tree rings in time The post Jason Middlebrook appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Ernie Is Our Co-Pilot Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the past you subscribed. (Thank you, by the way.) Back then, I was writing about some nexus of travels abroad, personal or professional news, and technology-ish topics. There are some...
Ben Borgers
You Might Be Right, But Shut Up
over a year ago
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
31
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Happiness Could Be Impartial for Once' Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone...
5 months ago
16
5 months ago
Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone world – Pushkin, Andrey Plantonov, Teffi, Lev Ozerov and Vasily Grossman, among others. Most of Chandler’s own prose I've read has been in the form of brief introductions and...
Ben Borgers
Personal Software
over a year ago
The Elysian
Asia and the future of the nation state A discussion with Benjamin Perry.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Noteworthy Action of Human Life' I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying and traveled by air only twice in his life, when very young. We were seated across from each other, on the couches by the front window. What I remember of the dream is brief, little...
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
43
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.
The Marginalian
Working Out, Working In: Applying the Six Principles of Athletic Training to Writing and Creative... The highest and hardest task of life may be to become entirely ourselves — to continually purify and...
a year ago
57
a year ago
The highest and hardest task of life may be to become entirely ourselves — to continually purify and clarify who and what we are, shedding the shoulds of culture, convention, and expectation to discover the innermost musts: those deepest and truest callings of the authentic self,...
Ben Borgers
Batching
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Frivolous Subjects?' “Frivolous subjects? Well, and thank God for it, not everybody can be writing about big,...
2 months ago
13
2 months ago
“Frivolous subjects? Well, and thank God for it, not everybody can be writing about big, so-called important issues: population, genes, semantics, sex, death. Surely there is value in anything that makes us laugh, that makes us understand ourselves more.”  These wise words are...
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
29
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
Leaning Toward Light: A Posy of Poems Celebrating the Joys and Consolations of the Garden “Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone,”...
a year ago
25
a year ago
“Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone,” the poet and passionate gardener May Sarton wrote as she contemplated the parallels between these two creative practices — parallels that have led centuries of beloved writers to...
The American Scholar
Masters of Horror and Magic The German folklorists who helped build a nation The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first...
8 months ago
35
8 months ago
The German folklorists who helped build a nation The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
"Some of His Work Was Gold' From a dusty, thoroughly disorganized Houston bookstore I bought a copy of Turnstile One: A...
a week ago
9
a week ago
From a dusty, thoroughly disorganized Houston bookstore I bought a copy of Turnstile One: A Literary Miscellany (Turnstile Press, 1948), edited by V.S. Pritchett. Much of its literary quality shames today's readers and writers. It collects poems, stories, essays and reviews...
The Perry Bible...
Brushed The post Brushed appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Without One Wonder in the Sky!' John Partridge (1677-1715) was an English shoemaker-turned-astrologer who claimed to have refined...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
John Partridge (1677-1715) was an English shoemaker-turned-astrologer who claimed to have refined his “science.” Don’t smirk or pity our benighted forebears. Newspapers still publish astrology columns and dozens of astrological publications remain in print. See Modern Astrology...
The American Scholar
Kat Wiese Taking flight The post Kat Wiese appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Idle Words
The Shape of a Mars Mission This post is the second in a series. Read part one here. p {line-height:1.6em; } p.caption {...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
This post is the second in a series. Read part one here. p {line-height:1.6em; } p.caption { margin-top:0px;padding-top:0px;margin-bottom:20px;text-align:center;} a.fnote {text-decoration:none;color:red} img {margin-bottom:0px;} “From a mathematics and trajectory...
Ben Borgers
An Eye for Design
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Eat the Sun: A Blind Hero of the Resistance on Accessing the Light Within and Touching the... “There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry...
a year ago
20
a year ago
“There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry in yourself. As to the things inside, you will never see them well unless you allow those outside to enter in.”
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ 11,218 feet We roll into Rico, Colorado, parking in front of the local post office. It’s rustic. Cute....
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
We roll into Rico, Colorado, parking in front of the local post office. It’s rustic. Cute. Mountain-town vibes are abundant. Like a peacock, the foliage on the drive from Cortez is in full plumage. During the drive, neither Jen nor I, and even Grant, can’t not marvel at the...
The American Scholar
“The White Heart of God” by Jack Gilbert Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The White Heart of God” by Jack Gilbert appeared first on...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The White Heart of God” by Jack Gilbert appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Why schedule something that doesn't exist? The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow. Then, I left the...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow. Then, I left the room for a bit. I didn’t have anything to say. Or, I didn’t think I did. Yet, all over my computer, and in various list trackers and note-taking apps, I’ve got dozens of ideas to...
The American Scholar
“The Overture” The post “The Overture” appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
56
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
The Marginalian
On Play The necessities of survival make our lives livable, but everything that makes them worth living...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
The necessities of survival make our lives livable, but everything that makes them worth living partakes of the art of the unnecessary: beauty (the cave was no warmer or safer for our paintings, and what about the bowerbird?), love (how easily we could propagate our genes without...
Ben Borgers
Now
6 months ago
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
Splitting Our Sides A new biography of a comedy pioneer The post Splitting Our Sides appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
A new biography of a comedy pioneer The post Splitting Our Sides appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Maximalisma A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her The...
4 months ago
14
4 months ago
A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her The post Maximalisma appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Lingua Obscura Laura Spinney on the spread of Proto-Indo-European The post Lingua Obscura appeared first on The...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Laura Spinney on the spread of Proto-Indo-European The post Lingua Obscura appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The War with What He Does Not Understand' “. . . I am closer to the ‘life of the spirit’ than you are. You are talking about the right of one...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
“. . . I am closer to the ‘life of the spirit’ than you are. You are talking about the right of one or another type of knowledge to exist, whereas I’m talking about peace, not rights. I want people not to see war where there isn’t any. Different branches of knowledge have always...
Ben Borgers
Hash Tables [explained for anyone]
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Are Not So Full of Evil As of Inanity' Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and Heraclitus.” The former is reputed to have been a misanthrope, perhaps a melancholic. The latter was known as “the laughing philosopher.”  The essayist begins by weighing the importance...
Josh Thompson
Trader Joe's Parking Lot Hey Trader Joe’s, This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Hey Trader Joe’s, This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader Joe’s. I just moved to this part of Denver, and now for the first time am living within like a 3 minute scoot of a Trader Joe’s. I know that some people like to complain about...
Josh Thompson
Find out how much money you've made (in your entire life) This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today: https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/ After...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
This post went by on the Personal Finance subreddit today: https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/ After creating an account / logging in, click on Earnings, then add the columns. If you have been working for many years, try copying/pasting the column in excel and using the sum...
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 Marginalian
But We Had Music: Nick Cave Reads an Animated Poem about Black Holes, Eternity, and How to Bear Our... How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through...
a year ago
73
a year ago
How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through friendship, through connection, through co-creating the world we want to live in for the brief time we have together on this lonely, perfect planet. The seventh annual Universe in Verse — a...
Josh Thompson
Thoughts on Money from 2013 I was looking through some draft posts I have lying around, and found one from the middle of 2013....
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I was looking through some draft posts I have lying around, and found one from the middle of 2013. That’s 2.5 years ago. Reading over it, I feel satisfaction for a few reasons: Old Josh (from July 2013) wasn’t a train wreck. As soon as I think about myself in highschool and...
This Space
39 Books: 1985 The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite...
a year ago
83
a year ago
The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite novelist (which tells you all you need to know about the intellectual energies of British Royal Family). It was the hardback edition below and tells the story of an Olympic champion...
Astral Codex Ten
My Takeaways From AI 2027 ...
3 months ago
The Marginalian
An Illustrated Love Letter to Words and the Meaning Between Them Growing up immersed in theorems and equations, I took great comfort in the pristine clarity of...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
Growing up immersed in theorems and equations, I took great comfort in the pristine clarity of mathematics, the way numbers, symbols, and figures each mean one thing only, with no room for interpretation — a little unit of truth, unhaunted by the chimera of meaning. I felt like I...
Josh Thompson
Change The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes its for the worse. I don’t know if there’s always a difference. Recently, Kristi and I have seen lots of change; I’d say its for the better, but it’s not...
This Space
A rare sort of writer Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've written over the years – after a brief interlude. I read him first in July 1988 after borrowing The Lessons of Modernism from the second floor of Portsmouth Central Library because...
The American Scholar
Drops in a Bucket The post Drops in a Bucket appeared first on The American Scholar.
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
OK, some new books Yesterday, I proclaimed “ No new books”. I spent a lot of time today thinking about that...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Yesterday, I proclaimed “ No new books”. I spent a lot of time today thinking about that proclamation. Do I really want to limit myself to just the books that I’ve already picked for myself? Yes. Maybe. There’s a kind of book I don’t want to read any more of. That’s the “get...
The Marginalian
What We Look for When We Are Looking: John Steinbeck on Wonder and the Relational Nature of the... Searching for "that principle which keys us deeply into the pattern of all life."
over a year ago
The American Scholar
As I Walked Out One Morning The post As I Walked Out One Morning appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Josh Thompson
Fixing Ford and Washington Do all of these, in the right order/way/buy-in. btw, i’m pretending it’s easy. it’s not trivial, but...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Do all of these, in the right order/way/buy-in. btw, i’m pretending it’s easy. it’s not trivial, but it is doable: Step 1: Install car-friendly roundabouts targeting a ~20 mph throughput speed throughout the city and eliminate all stopsigns and stoplights Please see about...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 373 ...
4 months ago
The Marginalian
The Importance of Trusting Yourself: Nick Cave on the Relationship Between Creativity and Faith "There is more going on than we can see or understand, and we need to find a way to lean into the...
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ IRL Day 6: Sept 15 2023 Longmont, CO & Boulder, CO — I’ve known Gino Zahnd via the internet for a long,...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 6: Sept 15 2023 Longmont, CO & Boulder, CO — I’ve known Gino Zahnd via the internet for a long, long time now. We’ve never met in person, but our design and cycling circles overlap, and we share many mutual friends. We started chatting regularly during the pandemic, and I...
The Marginalian
How to Be a Living Poem: Lucille Clifton on the Balance of Intellect and Intuition in Creative Work... "I didn’t graduate from college, which isn’t necessary to be a poet. It is only necessary to be...
a year ago
The Marginalian
Lichens and the Meaning of Life "We are lichens on a grand scale."
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared...
10 months ago
63
10 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Caprock Adventures worth the silence The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
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
57
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...
The Elysian
What if your side hustle is being in Congress? The future of democracy is direct, online, and doesn't require politicians.
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Ledge Itself Invents the Leap' Good hearts try to talk us out of phobias. After all, people are naïve about the powers of...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks ago
Good hearts try to talk us out of phobias. After all, people are naïve about the powers of rationalism: “Explain it, and it goes away.” As a kid I fell for that, almost literally, when I tried to muscle my way with sheer will power past the Terminal Tower in downtown...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in May 2023 I had a good time. GREEK PHILOSOPHY The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post,...
over a year ago
125
over a year ago
I had a good time. GREEK PHILOSOPHY The Nicomachean Ethics (4th C. BCE), Aristotle - a post, however shallow, should appear soon. FICTION Joseph in Egypt (1936), Thomas Mann The Long Valley (1938) & The Grapes of Wrath (1939), John Steinbeck - I last read this probably...
Josh Thompson
Things You Can't Do from Behind a Computer, pt. 1 Meet people. Over the last nine or ten months, I can clearly remember a handful of conversations I...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Meet people. Over the last nine or ten months, I can clearly remember a handful of conversations I had. I initiated each conversation with someone that I wanted to learn from. Most I had some prior relationship with (I.E. I had met them, or I knew someone who knew them). This was...
Escaping Flatland
Thinking about perceptiveness links
11 months ago
The American Scholar
“The Jester’s Magma” The post “The Jester’s Magma” appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'After So Many Deaths I Live and Write' One needn’t be a fetishist or even a book collector – reader is close enough -- to prize an...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
One needn’t be a fetishist or even a book collector – reader is close enough -- to prize an “association copy,” a term neatly defined here: “A book that belonged to or was annotated by the author, someone close to the author, a famous or noteworthy person, or someone especially...
The American Scholar
Agent 37 The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Against Self-Improvement: Adam Phillips on the Danger of Treating Ourselves as Pathological Patients... "So much depends on what we can make of what happens to us."
4 months ago
The Elysian
I built a castle to save the economy You're welcome.
a year ago
ribbonfarm
History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I...
a year ago
22
a year ago
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I visited the city (on Kindle, so I didn’t realize when I started that it’s 600 pages plus another 250 odd notes). It’s dense and absorbing and I’ll probably do a reflections post...
Josh Thompson
Exploring source code via Griddler and Griddler-Mailgun Proofpoint had a two-day “hack day” recently. My coworker John and I teamed up on a cool little...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Proofpoint had a two-day “hack day” recently. My coworker John and I teamed up on a cool little feature. I’ll give some context in a moment, but this post isn’t about the hack day, or email - it’s about exploring source code. Here’s the context: In my day-to-day, I work on a...
The Elysian
You’d still work if you didn’t have to But it would feel more like play.
a year ago
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...
The Marginalian
Curiosity as an Instrument of Love: Thoreau and the Little Owl "If you would learn the secrets of Nature, you must practice more humanity than others."
9 months ago
The Marginalian
How to Triumph Over the Challenges of the Creative Life: Audubon’s Antidote to Despair We move through the world as surfaces shimmering with the visibilia of our accomplishments, the...
9 months ago
75
9 months ago
We move through the world as surfaces shimmering with the visibilia of our accomplishments, the undertow of our suffering invisible to passers-by. The selective collective memory we call history contributes to this willful blindness, obscuring the tremendous personal cost behind...
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...
Josh Thompson
How to complete a project Most of us have goals. And we usually don’t reach any of them. The Minimum Viable Product “concept”...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Most of us have goals. And we usually don’t reach any of them. The Minimum Viable Product “concept” has helped me with some goals, and it could be helpful to you. It’s a simple concept: When starting something new, figure out what the minimum investment would get you the...
The American Scholar
Guillermo The post Guillermo appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The American Scholar
The Given Child To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village? The...
a year ago
39
a year ago
To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village? The post The Given Child appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Absolute Anthology' The American poet Len Krisak asks a question common to all serious readers, one that, if...
a week ago
9
a week 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...
Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Sanding UI One of the ways I like to do development is to build something, click around a ton, make tweaks,...
10 months ago
72
10 months ago
One of the ways I like to do development is to build something, click around a ton, make tweaks, click around more, more tweaks, more clicks, etc., until I finally consider it done. The clicking around a ton is the important part. If it’s a page transition, that means going back...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And For It Does So Dearly Pay' Some wartime casualties are time-released. Death is deferred. In his new collection, That Mad...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
Some wartime casualties are time-released. Death is deferred. In his new collection, That Mad Game (Scienter Press, 2025), R.L. Barth devotes three poems to a civilian, the war correspondent Albert W. Vinson, who wrote about him leading a patrol of Marines in Vietnam in 1968. The...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry Is an Art' Most bores are not aware they are boring. It’s not always their fault and the impulse to tell them...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
Most bores are not aware they are boring. It’s not always their fault and the impulse to tell them they are boring, though understandable, is almost always a waste of time. You can’t make people interesting who value their humorlessness, bad taste and stridency.  I woke the other...
sbensu
The Market for Takes Solving for the Twitter equilibrium
11 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Gives to Airy Nothing a Local Habitation' What attracted me was the anthologist’s audacity in titling his book: 100 Best Poems in the English...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
What attracted me was the anthologist’s audacity in titling his book: 100 Best Poems in the English Language (1952). In his introduction, Stephen Graham does little to impress us with his literary humility. His anthology is, he writes, “perhaps the only one of its kind,...
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
17
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...
Ben Borgers
Overwhelmed
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Twitter Not Found
over a year ago
The Elysian
Week 4: One pitch several places
a year ago
Robert Caro
Alone on the Desert Her Dream Fades A lack of basic infrastructure forced a 74‒year-old widow to carry a water bucket a mile-and-a-half...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
A lack of basic infrastructure forced a 74‒year-old widow to carry a water bucket a mile-and-a-half back to her tiny shack.
Escaping Flatland
Almost everyone I’ve met would be well-served thinking more about what to focus on Including me
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Borrego Boogie Almost a year ago, Jen and I headed south to Bishop, then a run through Death Valley, an obnoxiously...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Almost a year ago, Jen and I headed south to Bishop, then a run through Death Valley, an obnoxiously windy night in Alabama Hills, and then reset in San Diego before a good run and a few nights in Anza-Borrego desert. It's remarkable that a place this wild and surprisingly...
Josh Thompson
On Learning As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the context of software development. I am a bit hyperactive when it comes to trying to learn new things. Over the years, I’ve done plenty of ineffective learning, and at least a...
The American Scholar
Aging Out Many of us do not go gentle into that good night The post Aging Out appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
29
7 months ago
Many of us do not go gentle into that good night The post Aging Out appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2024 A man sets out to draw the world.
7 months ago
The American Scholar
A Story for Christmas The post A Story for Christmas appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
Resources for People with Jobs RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those waking hours when you’re not at work thinking about how to improve the hours that you are working. Often, improving your work means you can improve your work conditions and...
This Space
Further in the opposite direction Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal...
a year ago
54
a year ago
Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal themselves to be human-all-too-human fictions that lack divine legitimation. Religion is supposed to wither away. But this itself...can be understood as a religious claim: the very...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For I Have Renounced Happiness' “Happiness is the search for happiness.”  I’m not so sure. My understanding is that there are no...
a month ago
14
a month ago
“Happiness is the search for happiness.”  I’m not so sure. My understanding is that there are no happy lives, only happy moments. Those moments seem to be the byproduct of right living. A life dedicated fulltime to achieving happiness is likely to be filled with respites of...
Ben Borgers
The real reason for my multiple majors
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Taking the Plunge with Colemak This entire post is written in Colemak. I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
This entire post is written in Colemak. I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is certainly harder than copying someone else’s words. I have completed a few hours of dedicated practice, and it is quite possible that I am jumping the gun, and will quickly revert to...
Josh Thompson
A 40 Hour Work Week Business Insider posted an article on why we have a 40 hour work week. The author blames big...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Business Insider posted an article on why we have a 40 hour work week. The author blames big business for why we’ve not dropped below 40 hours per week. He thinks that if America became less consumer-driven, our economy would collapse. He’s got the wrong starting assumptions...
This Space
39 Books: 2018 In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this...
a year ago
83
a year ago
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this year was packed with a variety: Australian, Korean, Austrian, Egyptian, German, Argentinian and, today's choice, Norwegian; that is, if variety depends on the country of origin. But...
ben-mini
Platform or Point Solution? A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech companies are so determined to become labeled as one. My definition of a platform is a tool that allows users to define and build their own things, which can be used by other...
Escaping Flatland
Having a shit blog has made me feel abundant From Giacometti’s sketch book
10 months ago
The American Scholar
Jeanne F. Jalandoni Weaving past and present together The post Jeanne F. Jalandoni appeared first on The American...
yesterday
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Smart Quotes for Smart People Good typography uses smart quotes, not dumb quotes. — Jason Santa Maria Visit original link → or...
10 months ago
25
10 months ago
Good typography uses smart quotes, not dumb quotes. — Jason Santa Maria Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The American Scholar
Diana Antohe Threads of memory and home The post Diana Antohe appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Turning to Stone: A Geologist’s Love Letter to the Wisdom of Rocks Among the great salvations of my childhood were the rocks and minerals lining the bookshelves of our...
11 months ago
69
11 months ago
Among the great salvations of my childhood were the rocks and minerals lining the bookshelves of our next door neighbor — a geologist working for the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Water. I spent long hours casting amethyst refractions on the ceiling, carving words into...
The Marginalian
The Proper Object of Love: Iris Murdoch on the Angst of Not Knowing Ourselves and Each Other One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We...
11 months ago
93
11 months ago
One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We lurch into loving, only to discover again and again that it takes a long time to know people, to understand people — and “understanding is love’s other name.” Even without...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Poet Is a Noble Creature' “. . . I am under the necessity of appearing as an ancient and more or less venerable figure; others...
5 months ago
20
5 months ago
“. . . I am under the necessity of appearing as an ancient and more or less venerable figure; others may come in aeroplanes, but I arrive on a boneshaker; others may give a demonstration with electric stoves, but I freeze over my doleful brazier. Side-whiskers should have been...
The American Scholar
Ground Truth A story of dirt, dollars, and death The post Ground Truth appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
36
10 months ago
A story of dirt, dollars, and death The post Ground Truth appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Talent is Overrated Talent is Overrated In Talent is Overrated, the author argues that world-class performers are not...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Talent is Overrated In Talent is Overrated, the author argues that world-class performers are not genetically gifted. The difference between world-class performers and the rest of us? Lots of deliberate practice. (Read the article.) I have no interest in becoming Mozart, or Tiger...
The Marginalian
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."
The Marginalian
Imagine Water Otherwise: Robert Macfarlane on the Personhood of Rivers and the Meaning of Aliveness “Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river,” Borges wrote in his timeless...
a month ago
20
a month ago
“Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river,” Borges wrote in his timeless “refutation” of time. “No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,” Nietzsche wrote a century earlier in his directive on how to find yourself....
The Marginalian
Shame and the Secret Chambers of the Self: Pioneering Sociologist and Philosopher Helen Merrell Lynd... "Experiences of shame throw a flooding light on what and who we are and what the world we live in...
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 disorganized notes on a low information diet Stop thinking of Knowing The News as some sort of important part of a living person’s routine. The...
7 months ago
17
7 months ago
Stop thinking of Knowing The News as some sort of important part of a living person’s routine. The news is not designed to help you! — Kevin Fanning Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Blog -...
Book Review - Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 2019 Edition I don’t anticipate giving many perfect ratings, but this book is a rare gem – a captivating...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I don’t anticipate giving many perfect ratings, but this book is a rare gem – a captivating page-turner packed full of aha moments. The authors have woven together decades of personal research and experience in the field of intimate relationships to create a classic...
The Marginalian
On Wanting to Change: Adam Phillips on Our Capacity for Transformation "There is no description of a life without an account of the changes that are possible within it."
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Punctuation
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Indiana Absurd Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Notes at 46 Thoughts, observations, and new ways of approaching life that have been percolating since my last...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Thoughts, observations, and new ways of approaching life that have been percolating since my last birthday: Owning a personal digital space is more important than ever before. Having come to the internet during a time when all it was were personal fan sites and journals, and the...
sbensu
The birth of a (pseudo) currency A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they...
a year ago
19
a year ago
A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they coming back in 2024?
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ We're not in Kansas anymore Day 20: Sept 29, 2023 — Alyssa and Craig take us to Post Coffee for a farewell coffee and tea. I...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 20: Sept 29, 2023 — Alyssa and Craig take us to Post Coffee for a farewell coffee and tea. I try to pay, but Craig literally holds me in place while Alyssa sneaks in with a credit card. We linger in the sun over drinks, and like most departures, say goodbye with the hopes...
The American Scholar
“Snow” by Louis MacNeice Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snow” by Louis MacNeice appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Show the Poetry of the Commonplace' A friend in Schenectady, N.Y. worked as a lineman for the telephone company for almost half a...
4 months ago
30
4 months ago
A friend in Schenectady, N.Y. worked as a lineman for the telephone company for almost half a century, into his seventies. He was the guy who strapped on a belt and spikes and climbed those sliver-making poles, and later showed rookie linemen the ropes. On the side, Bob was an...
The Marginalian
Hermann Hesse on What Books Give Us and the Heart of Wisdom Books show us what it is like to be another and at the same time return us to ourselves. We read to...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Books show us what it is like to be another and at the same time return us to ourselves. We read to learn how to live — how to love and how to suffer, how to grieve and how to be glad. We read to clarify ourselves and to anneal our values. We read for the assurance that others...
The American Scholar
“The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet appeared first on The...
11 months ago
73
11 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Cucumber ” by Nâzim Hikmet appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Poet of the Soil The legacy of a writer who struggled with his celebrity The post A Poet of the Soil appeared first...
9 months ago
76
9 months ago
The legacy of a writer who struggled with his celebrity The post A Poet of the Soil appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Think, to Read, to Meditate, to React' Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us --...
4 months ago
29
4 months ago
Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us -- to “read everything.” The suggestion is not dictatorial. The Pole even admits he is a “chaotic reader,” as most of us are. I’ve never been systematic about much of anything...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Ditch walkin' Day 11: Sept 20, 2023 — I hear footsteps and morning routines in motion. My sister-in-law and her...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Day 11: Sept 20, 2023 — I hear footsteps and morning routines in motion. My sister-in-law and her family are gearing up for work and school. I remember this flurry of activity as a kid myself — the hustle to get motivated. Jen goes upstairs to chat briefly with everyone before...
Escaping Flatland
Bring everything into the conversation layer A conversation is not an interface that lets you get to know each other; it is an interface that...
6 months ago
68
6 months ago
A conversation is not an interface that lets you get to know each other; it is an interface that lets you savor and get enriched by the Otherness of each other. The richer the conversation becomes, the more this Otherness can be expressed and explored.
Wuthering...
What I Read in April 2025 – Have we cherished expectations? I should make that the new official slogan of the blog.  It is from p. 614 of Finnegans Wake, one of...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
I should make that the new official slogan of the blog.  It is from p. 614 of Finnegans Wake, one of the books I recently read. FICTION The Sword in the Stone (1938), T. H. White – I for some reason did not read this as a youth.  It is wonderful, full of anachronism and parody...
Ben Borgers
There’s No Personal Space in College
over a year ago
Ploum.net
The candid naivety of geeks The candid naivety of geeks I mean, come on! Amazon recently announced that, from now on, everything...
3 months ago
47
3 months ago
The candid naivety of geeks I mean, come on! Amazon recently announced that, from now on, everything you say to Alexa will be sent to their server. Pluralistic: Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading (15 Mar 2025)...
The American Scholar
Cudillero The post Cudillero appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Ben Borgers
The TikTok Peer Group
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Advice from my editor A sculptural representation of JS Bach’s Fugue in E Flat Minor by Henrik Neugeboren “I can’t make...
a year ago
102
a year ago
A sculptural representation of JS Bach’s Fugue in E Flat Minor by Henrik Neugeboren “I can’t make myself finish this one,” Johanna said one night when we were reading together in bed. She was working her way through a 6021-word essay draft about identities as interfaces that I...
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
17
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...
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
18
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...
The American Scholar
New Year, Old Year The post New Year, Old Year appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
Typing in Colemac 2.0 I want to learn to type in Colemak, but I’m afraid to try to invest twenty hours in it. That’s a...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I want to learn to type in Colemak, but I’m afraid to try to invest twenty hours in it. That’s a long commitment, and I’m afraid I would not follow through, and feel like it was a failure, because I didn’t allot enough time, nor reach a desired level of skill. My hope is that as...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Dark is Dubious We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been home for two nights, where we luxuriated in a king-size bed with our own pillows (we don’t leave home without them). How We Got Here Since the last missive, we parted ways with...
Ben Borgers
Reflection on Shutting Down Blocks
over a year ago
The Elysian
Social Development > Self-Development We need one much more than the other.
6 months ago
The Marginalian
D.H. Lawrence on the Hypocrisies of Social Change and What It Actually Takes to Shift the Status Quo "We have created a great, almost overwhelming incubus of falsity and ugliness on top of us, so that...
a year ago
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 →
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 No one’s ready for this An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A...
10 months ago
10
10 months ago
An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A cockroach in a box of takeout. It took less than 10 seconds to create each of these images with the Reimagine tool in the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. They are crisp. They are in full...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Familiar Hearts of Strangers' “At bottom Chekhov is a writer who has flung his soul to the side of pity, and sees into the...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
“At bottom Chekhov is a writer who has flung his soul to the side of pity, and sees into the holiness and immaculate fragility of the hidden striver below.”  In his letters to family and friends, Chekhov can be harsh, hectoring and even smutty, though seldom in the stories except...
The American Scholar
Above the River of Your Longing Two new prompts The post Above the River of Your Longing appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The Elysian
Can we create a wise & enlightened citizenry? We'll need to address cognitive biases if we want to reach Plato's ideal.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Swan Sky: A Bittersweet Vintage Japanese Meditation on Love, Loss, and the Eternal Consolations of... To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against...
a year ago
93
a year ago
To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against abandonment. No one is leaving and no one is being left in this unison of movement along a vector of common purpose. It is the only instance I know of a transition that is not a...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Dave is a vibe Day 7: Sept 16, 2023 — As promised, we meet up with Gino at his abode after we check out of the...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 7: Sept 16, 2023 — As promised, we meet up with Gino at his abode after we check out of the hotel. He offers some of his wife’s homemade gluten-free oat-zucchini-carrot-blueberry bread for us to snack on before departure. He hands us a walkie-talkie, and we make plans to tour...
The Marginalian
Some Thoughts about the Ocean and the Universe How to bear the gravity of being.
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
3:00 a.m. Radio
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
How to fly… like a boss I am in a quest to level up my life. Free flights is a big part of this. I’ve not gotten too many...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
I am in a quest to level up my life. Free flights is a big part of this. I’ve not gotten too many of those yet, but the next best thing is free seat upgrades. I’m not talking about first class - that’s beyond me, at the moment. I’m talking about getting stuck in the back of the...
The American Scholar
“The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska appeared...
5 months ago
49
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
POODR Notes: Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance (Chapter 6) I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6,...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6, Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance; mostly these are for me, and they don’t intend to stand on their own. Read the book, work through chapter six, and then come back and read...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Fun Which Is Ebullient All Over Yours' A pun is best delivered without announcing itself as a pun. Those ungifted at wordplay tend...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks ago
A pun is best delivered without announcing itself as a pun. Those ungifted at wordplay tend to underline, boldface and italicize their every attempt at a pun, most of which are already feeble. Thus, the pun’s bad reputation and the ensuing groans. In contrast I love a good,...
The American Scholar
A Pair of Elephants The post A Pair of Elephants appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
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...
7 months ago
34
7 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mystery of Language I Shall Never Solve' Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for...
4 months ago
33
4 months ago
Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for a poem. How many ways are there to be jubilant or render the sensation of “cavorting with the milkmaids,” as an old friend once put it? The effort usually comes off as hackneyed or...
Wuthering...
The Frogs by Aristophanes - Brilliant! Brilliant! Wish I knew what you were talking about! The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play.  It was performed in what now look like the waning...
over a year ago
52
over a year ago
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play.  It was performed in what now look like the waning days of Athens, just before their conquest by Sparta, and in particular the last days of Athenian tragedy, with Euripides and Sophocles both recently dead.  In what may be the most...
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...
Ben Borgers
Parking Tickets Wrapped 2024
6 months ago
The Elysian
I'm crowdfunding my next book advance And sharing the earnings with readers.
4 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 367 ...
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cure Death With the Rub of a Dock Leaf' The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely...
5 months ago
19
5 months ago
The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely but recall a devotion to the natural world and to World War I, in which his father fought. Here is “Glossary” (The Candlelight Master, 2020):   “I meet my father in the glossary Who...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Is Looking in the Right Direction' News of certain public deaths remains rooted in memory to an indelible time and place. Famously,...
a week ago
8
a week ago
News of certain public deaths remains rooted in memory to an indelible time and place. Famously, millions of mundane lives intersected forever with the assassination of President Kennedy, which people recall in vivid detail more than sixty years later their reactions at that...
Ploum.net
La colère de l’écrivain La colère de l’écrivain RAPPEL: je serai à Louvain-la-Neuve mardi 10 décembre à 19h à La Page...
7 months ago
15
7 months ago
La colère de l’écrivain RAPPEL: je serai à Louvain-la-Neuve mardi 10 décembre à 19h à La Page d’Après pour ma dernière rencontre de l’année. Rencontre Littéraire Bikepunk avec Ploum (mobilizon.fr) Comme je l’explique dans la suite de ce billet, le succès de Bikepunk a pris le...
The Marginalian
The Sky and the Soul: 19th-Century Norwegian Artist Knud Baade’s Transcendent Cloudscapes Nothing on Earth appears more divine yet attests more fully to the materiality of being than clouds...
a year ago
45
a year ago
Nothing on Earth appears more divine yet attests more fully to the materiality of being than clouds — enchanting emblems of the water cycle that makes this rocky planet a living world, drifting across our shared dome as if exhaled by some lovesick god. That we should have such a...
Astral Codex Ten
How Did You Do On The AI Art Turing Test? ...
7 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 357 ...
7 months ago
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
44
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...
sbensu
Pricing APIs Lessons from AWS S3 and others on how to price APIs.
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
41
10 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Why Do I Care About Grades?
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Liquid Gold Hi, this is Weightshifting, a newsletter by Naz Hamid and Jen Schuetz, primarily about vehicular...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Hi, this is Weightshifting, a newsletter by Naz Hamid and Jen Schuetz, primarily about vehicular travel and exploring the American West. This is season 2, en route from San Francisco to St. Louis. Our primary reason is to visit Jen’s family and attend a wedding. Our secondary...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Taken For A Ride There’s a visceral reaction when the idea of an autonomous car is brought up. “No way!” “I don’t...
9 months ago
11
9 months ago
There’s a visceral reaction when the idea of an autonomous car is brought up. “No way!” “I don’t trust robots.” “How can that even be safe?” These are commonplace in the discourse of driverless vehicles. Some protestors have even placed cones on the vehicles’ sensors and cameras...
Josh Thompson
Train Hard When’s the last time you participated in a sporting event? (Football, Ultimate Frisbee, rock...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
When’s the last time you participated in a sporting event? (Football, Ultimate Frisbee, rock climbing, running biking, wrestling, whatever) When’s the last time you trained for that activity? Finally: When is the last time you trained for that activity with someone else?...
The American Scholar
“Snake” by D. H. Lawrence Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snake” by D. H. Lawrence appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
75
10 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snake” by D. H. Lawrence appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
Astral Codex Ten
Deliberative Alignment, And The Spec ...
5 months ago
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
Magnolias and the Meaning of Life: Science, Poetry, Existentialism On cruelty, kindness, and the song of life.
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Metamorphoses, cantos 7 through 10 - more Heroides, more gore, more of everything - What meen my... Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which...
a year ago
113
a year ago
Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which have their share of famous stories, stories famous, or as famous as they are, because of Metamorphoses.  Venus and Adonis, Baucis and Philemon, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion.  Icarus –...
Astral Codex Ten
Subscrive Drive '25 + Free Unlocked Posts ...
6 months ago
Ben Borgers
Music at 20%
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Nobel-Winning Poet Joseph Brodsky on the Remedy for Existential Boredom "Try to stay passionate, leave your cool to constellations. Passion, above all, is a remedy against...
a year ago
73
a year ago
"Try to stay passionate, leave your cool to constellations. Passion, above all, is a remedy against boredom. Another one, of course, is pain... passion's frequent aftermath."
Ben Borgers
Daily Habits
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Now Reopen for Business California re-opened on Tuesday and literally overnight, it feels like everything changed. And it...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
California re-opened on Tuesday and literally overnight, it feels like everything changed. And it has. The streets are busy again, clear voices can be heard all over, and people are emerging from their cocoons at their pace. It feels like whiplash: going from riding with one...
Wuthering...
What I Read in June 2025 - A life of agony was all for naught. My summer plan was to read, short, easy books, and I almost succeeded.  I read short, difficult...
a week ago
17
a week ago
My summer plan was to read, short, easy books, and I almost succeeded.  I read short, difficult books in French, and accidentally read several grim, sad, violent books, alongside some playful nonsense.   FICTION The Field of Life and Death (1935), Xiao Hong – For example.  Ninety...
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
Astral Codex Ten
Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Proofs Of God's Existence ...
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Three People Talking
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is Not Writing a Poem' Cultural Amnesia (2007) ranks among the most enduringly entertaining books published in this...
5 months ago
16
5 months ago
Cultural Amnesia (2007) ranks among the most enduringly entertaining books published in this still-young century. The late Clive James read books like a scholar and wrote about them like an impossibly gifted teenager – that is, with shameless enthusiasm. He was never too cool to...
Josh Thompson
Streets in Asheville Quick-and-dirty street analysis in Asheville, NC A few months ago, I visited Asheville, NC. It’s a...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Quick-and-dirty street analysis in Asheville, NC A few months ago, I visited Asheville, NC. It’s a nice town, and has a great pedestrian life, as far as I can tell. As a thought experiment, I decided to see how well I could make the case for reducing the road width of a few...
Wuthering...
How A Dance to the Music of Time works, so far - I always enjoy hearing the details of other... My writing here is often about what surprised me or did not.  So let’s have that about the first...
a month ago
21
a month ago
My writing here is often about what surprised me or did not.  So let’s have that about the first four novels of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, the twelve volume sequence published from 1951 to 1975 and covering a refracted version of Powell’s life from his later...
Ben Borgers
Thinking in Silence
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Public Work Public Work is a search engine for public domain content. Explore 100,000+ copyright-free images...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
Public Work is a search engine for public domain content. Explore 100,000+ copyright-free images from The MET, New York Public Library, and other sources. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
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
20
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...
This Space
39 Books: 2021 I lived in Brighton for 30 years. One of the many painful aspects of leaving in 2021 was losing the...
a year ago
108
a year ago
I lived in Brighton for 30 years. One of the many painful aspects of leaving in 2021 was losing the many second-hand bookshops, all within walking distance. Many have closed over the years, such as Sandpiper, a remaindered bookshop in Kensington Gardens. It had a backroom in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But Man Is Not Born for Happiness' “[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and...
4 months ago
25
4 months ago
“[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and neglected poet, come to this conclusion? In a letter to Rev. John Newton, written March 15, 1784, Cowper tells his friend he has just finished reading the eight volumes of Dr....
Wuthering...
Books I Read in June 2023 If only I had the will to write something.  But I can read. PHILOSOPHY Fragments or Sayings or...
over a year ago
92
over a year ago
If only I had the will to write something.  But I can read. PHILOSOPHY Fragments or Sayings or Tall Tales (4th C. BCE), Diogenes the Cynic, tr. Guy Davenport Cynics (2008), William Desmond - for an entry in a series aimed at students, surprisingly well written.  It helps that...
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
39
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Prison ...
7 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Index A curated online gallery with the best design studios, designers, type foundries, and other...
11 months ago
16
11 months ago
A curated online gallery with the best design studios, designers, type foundries, and other creatives worldwide. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
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...
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
8 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
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...
The Marginalian
How to Meet Your Mystery: Thomas Merton on Solitude and the Soul "It is a vocation to become fully awake, even more than the common somnolence permits one to be,...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
"It is a vocation to become fully awake, even more than the common somnolence permits one to be, with its arbitrary selection of approved dreams, mixed with a few really valid and fruitful conceptions."
Wuthering...
Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and their Stoic self-help books - I shall not be afraid when my last hour... The curious thing about Stoicism is its long-lasting survival in the self-help genre, curious at...
a year ago
79
a year ago
The curious thing about Stoicism is its long-lasting survival in the self-help genre, curious at least until I read Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic (1st C.) several years ago and discovered that it was a self-help book, one of the founding self-help books.  The Meditations of...
Josh Thompson
Avoid a car accident with a $3 tool TL;DR: Buy a blind spot mirror for your car. They are $2, and can keep you from getting in an...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
TL;DR: Buy a blind spot mirror for your car. They are $2, and can keep you from getting in an accident. Not a lot of people have them, though they’re awesome. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to make driving safer. Step 1 to making driving safer is “don’t...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The great escape from Reichsdummvogel. People change, we’ve changed, and no matter where we choose to interact online, who we are today is...
7 months ago
18
7 months ago
People change, we’ve changed, and no matter where we choose to interact online, who we are today is coming with us. I don’t mean to suggest that in a negative way, but I have yet to come across anyone who is 5-10 years older who hasn’t changed. And many of those folks feel...
Anecdotal Evidence
'When the Heart is Full . . .' “You say truly, that death is only terrible to us as it separates us from those we love, but I...
a month ago
12
a month ago
“You say truly, that death is only terrible to us as it separates us from those we love, but I really think those have the worst of it who are left by us, if we are true friends. I have felt more (I fancy) in the loss of Mr. Gay, than I shall suffer in the thought of going away...
The American Scholar
‘God-Knows-What-Kind-of-Classic’ Why shouldn’t America’s federal buildings speak to us in a language encompassing the old as well as...
a month ago
6
a month ago
Why shouldn’t America’s federal buildings speak to us in a language encompassing the old as well as the new? The post ‘God-Knows-What-Kind-of-Classic’ appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Sōseki's Kokoro and two Tanizaki genre exercises - I resolved that I must live my life as if I were... It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days for some reason we “challenged” people to read – which reminded me, as it often has, that I have never read anything by Natsumi Sōseki, the earliest of the greatest 20th century...
Josh Thompson
Practicing with Polylines This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base...
10 months ago
27
10 months ago
This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base primative, in this case, a “polyline”. Read the rest of this post, understand what we’re going for, then go to part 2: get your own polyline from strava. It’s not trivial to get, but its...
The Marginalian
How to Have Enough: Wendell Berry on Creativity and Love “Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson sighed in one of her love letters to Susan an epoch before Kurt Vonnegut, in a short and lovely poem, distilled happiness to the knowledge that you have enough. It is not an...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 modernity is stupid: a rant not about politics No one has enough time in the day! The thing about getting older is that it is a process of...
8 months ago
16
8 months ago
No one has enough time in the day! The thing about getting older is that it is a process of accumulation, you accumulate people and stuff and responsibilities and moral obligations, and you can only Marie Kondo yourself out of so much of it. My dentist gets on me about flossing...
Josh Thompson
Barefoot Sprinting Up a Grassy Hill, & Kettlebell Swings Introduction A few months ago, maybe in November, certainly by December, I began this ‘barefoot...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
Introduction A few months ago, maybe in November, certainly by December, I began this ‘barefoot sprinting up grassy hills’ thing I’m going about to talk about in detail below. Shortly after I started, I began making use of the kettlebells I’d usually ignored at the gym(s) I have...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 366 ...
5 months ago
This Space
"And no real fate" – reading in the interval A sportswriter on the radio said that the lack of football in covid lockdown has disrupted the...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
A sportswriter on the radio said that the lack of football in covid lockdown has disrupted the rhythm of the lives of those who follow the sport. The word stuck in my mind. Does rhythm differ from routine? When a routine is broken, there is an interval of confusion and anxiety,...
The American Scholar
Poco a Poco The post Poco a Poco appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Atlas of Type Atlas of Type is a directory of contemporary independent type design. Visit original link → or View...
10 months ago
32
10 months ago
Atlas of Type is a directory of contemporary independent type design. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
ribbonfarm
Storytelling — Philosophical Stakes Via the latest issue of Simon de la Rouviere’s excellent Scenes with Simon newsletter, I found a...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Via the latest issue of Simon de la Rouviere’s excellent Scenes with Simon newsletter, I found a video on good endings by Michael Arndt, screenwriter of Little Miss Sunshine, that basically answers the question I explored in Just Add Dinosaurs, where I argued that Matthew Dicks’...
Astral Codex Ten
ACX Survey Results 2025 ...
5 months ago
Wuthering...
Orestes by Euripides - And what had seemed so right, / as soon as done, became / evil, monstrous,... I want to invite anyone interested to join me in reading Aristotle’s Poetics, the foundation of...
over a year ago
65
over a year ago
I want to invite anyone interested to join me in reading Aristotle’s Poetics, the foundation of Western literary criticism, influential to the present day and bizarrely dominant, almost sacred, for centuries.  I hope to write about it at the end of the month, having just reread...
The Marginalian
Is It Not Wonderful to Be Alive: Edward Lear’s Parrots In the late summer of 1832, England was set aflame with wonder — a glimpse of something wild and...
2 days ago
4
2 days ago
In the late summer of 1832, England was set aflame with wonder — a glimpse of something wild and flamboyant, shimmering with the lush firstness of a world untrammeled by the boot of civilization. Edward Lear (May 12, 1812–January 29, 1888), barely out of his teens, had been...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Viva Las Vegas Day 25: Oct 4, 2023 — Today’s 8:30 a.m. Zoom motivates us awake. I’m fortunate to be able to work...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Day 25: Oct 4, 2023 — Today’s 8:30 a.m. Zoom motivates us awake. I’m fortunate to be able to work from the road, though it does require some planning and commitment. Planning in being present with reliable cell service, and commitment in doing the work I’m paid to do and to...
The Elysian
Newsletter bundles don't work A Guest Lecture with Even Armstrong on why he left Every to go independent.
a month ago
The American Scholar
The Writing on the Wall Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The...
9 months ago
58
9 months ago
Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The Writing on the Wall appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Fox and Bear: A Tender Modern Fable About Reversing the Anthropocene, Illustrated in Cut-Cardboard... An antidote to the civilizational compulsions that rob human nature of nature.
over a year ago