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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...
8 months ago
2
8 months 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
Redefining Success It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought about writing something here almost every day, but here is why I didn’t: I want to produce “content” that is helpful and relevant to those who might read it. I felt like nothing I...
Ben Borgers
My Stress is an Inside Job
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Rap Rap Rap The post Rap Rap Rap appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Rails Migration: When you can't add a uniqueness constraint because you already have duplicates I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for development.wombatsecurity.com. This post has been updated to reflect some lessons learned while running this migration in production. Don’t leave a column without an index at any point in...
The American Scholar
Survival Situation The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The...
6 months ago
22
6 months ago
The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Bollards: Why & What author’s note: it’s always fun to see your own stuff on the Hacker News front page! This very post...
7 months ago
1
7 months ago
author’s note: it’s always fun to see your own stuff on the Hacker News front page! This very post sparked >450 comments worth of conversation! I didn’t even know this got posted until days later! What are bollards The what and the why in a single image: The what and why in a...
Ben Borgers
Pictures as Memories
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Write Less Say More I recently read a short piece about using software to improve your own writing. To paraphrase one...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I recently read a short piece about using software to improve your own writing. To paraphrase one of the suggestions: “do away with weasel words, the passive voice, adverbs, cliches.”  I’m adding “complex sentences” to the list. Out of curiosity, I looked through things that...
Ben Borgers
You Might Be Right, But Shut Up
over a year ago
The American Scholar
The Importance of Being Different A travel writer’s education The post The Importance of Being Different appeared first on The...
7 months ago
75
7 months ago
A travel writer’s education The post The Importance of Being Different appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The World's an End' In recent years John Dryden has become one of my reliable poets. He impresses me as a sane adult,...
4 months ago
36
4 months ago
In recent years John Dryden has become one of my reliable poets. He impresses me as a sane adult, with equal emphasis on both of those words. No dabbling in drugs and madness. I brought a volume of his poems with me to Cleveland where I’m visiting my brother in hospice. No...
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
2
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
Krav Maga, or "Crush Balls, Gouge Eyes, and Break Bones" In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was just trying to choke me, but sometimes he was trying to throw me to the ground. After a few minutes of fighting, I would attack him. Then we’d both shake hands, say “thank you”, and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'First Find a Thinking Being. Lots of Luck' As a non-mathematician, I’m more interested in the history of mathematics than in math itself....
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
As a non-mathematician, I’m more interested in the history of mathematics than in math itself. That’s a confession of inadequacy, though I’m not one of those people who says, “I don’t have a head for math,” when what they really mean is arithmetic. Because of my job I’ve learned...
Josh Thompson
An Intro to Customer Success Customer Success - what is it? When I tell people I work in “Customer Success”, they immediately...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
Customer Success - what is it? When I tell people I work in “Customer Success”, they immediately think I do either Customer Support, or sales. In a way, they are correct. I do both. Today, and more in the future, I’ll dig deep into this particular industry. A traditional...
Josh Thompson
How Can You Buy Happiness? You can’t, but that won’t stop you and me from trying, at least a little. We (Humans, americans, at...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
You can’t, but that won’t stop you and me from trying, at least a little. We (Humans, americans, at least “other people like me”) like to buy things. But we should do more than just buy things. Experiences can have a much bigger impact on people’s happiness than things, and a...
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
Habits Take Preparation Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to quickly settle into a routine that makes sense for both of us. For example - I work for a company in Boston. While I could keep local working hours (Mountain Time) I prefer to...
Ben Borgers
Doubly Parasocial Relationships
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Monthly Review: October This is my first monthly review. I’ll spend some time fleshing out the why and the how, and then get...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
This is my first monthly review. I’ll spend some time fleshing out the why and the how, and then get right to it. If you don’t want to read a lot of introspective Josh, stop reading. I use the word “I” dozens of times. Consider yourself warned. For a long time I have feared life...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Amuse and Gratify Her Own Self' In her first collection, A Good Time Was Had By All (1937), Stevie Smith includes a couplet already...
a year ago
12
a year ago
In her first collection, A Good Time Was Had By All (1937), Stevie Smith includes a couplet already suggesting themes that would go on preoccupying her:   “All things pass Love and mankind is grass”.   In scripture, grass is the default metaphor for the transience of life. In the...
Josh Thompson
VCR's debug_logger and `git diff` I recently added the vcr gem to one of our repositories, and was adding tests for an external...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I recently added the vcr gem to one of our repositories, and was adding tests for an external API. One of my tests was passing, and I wanted to commit the VCR cassette, along with the test/code that went with it. I had thought I’d rebuilt the VCR cassette a few minutes before,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Sum of All the Losses' Abraham Lincoln was six feet, four inches tall, making him the tallest of U.S. presidents (LBJ was...
a month ago
19
a month ago
Abraham Lincoln was six feet, four inches tall, making him the tallest of U.S. presidents (LBJ was half an inch shorter). The crown of his trademark top hat – a stovepipe, it was called -- measured twelve inches in height. Allowing for the silk hat settling on his head, the...
The American Scholar
Going for Gold Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympic gymnast whose 1904 record still hasn’t been beaten The post...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympic gymnast whose 1904 record still hasn’t been beaten The post Going for Gold appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Success is not support We did a high-level “Customer Success” overview yesterday. Today, lets contrast customer support and...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
We did a high-level “Customer Success” overview yesterday. Today, lets contrast customer support and customer success. Support vs. Success First, what’s the difference between “customer support” and “customer success”? Lincoln Murphey says: Customer Success is proactively working...
Ben Borgers
School But Online
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Life Is So Long' Several years ago I was diagnosed with a condition called MGUS (pronounced EM-gus) -- monoclonal...
8 months ago
22
8 months ago
Several years ago I was diagnosed with a condition called MGUS (pronounced EM-gus) -- monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance. It’s a symptom-less and in most cases benign disorder, but it can be a precursor to multiple myeloma. It means I see my oncologist once a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'With Squeaky Wit the Light, Improper Verse' Without context or other clue, who do you think might have written this tart...
6 months ago
40
6 months ago
Without context or other clue, who do you think might have written this tart little couplet?:  “With squeaky wit the light, improper verse Falls on the heavy lunch and makes it worse.”   I first encountered him in the eighth grade, in English class. He was sold to us as the “poet...
Anecdotal Evidence
'All Forms of Evil ’Neath the Sun' Isaac Waisberg is an Israeli academic and friend who lives with his family near Tel Aviv. He also...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Isaac Waisberg is an Israeli academic and friend who lives with his family near Tel Aviv. He also runs IWP Books, an eclectic online library of titles ranging from Walter Bagehot and A.E. Housman to Theodor Haecker and Agnes Repplier. In short, he is a civilized man with...
Josh Thompson
Five Lessons Learned in Buenos Aires Note: This is an unedited draft of a post from July 5, 2015. Almost exactly one year ago, written...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Note: This is an unedited draft of a post from July 5, 2015. Almost exactly one year ago, written after a week in Buenos Aires. Since writing this post, Kristi and I have continued on to more than a year of non-stop travel, though we’re settling down back in Golden, CO in about...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Very Close to the Caliber of Mark Twain' I found a 2001 interview with Shelby Foote in The American Enterprise. The author of the three...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
I found a 2001 interview with Shelby Foote in The American Enterprise. The author of the three volumes of The Civil War: A Narrative (1958-1974) was asked by Bill Kauffman about the scarcity of politicians who are today capable of formulating their own coherent let alone eloquent...
ribbonfarm
Stack Map of the World I’ve been buried neck deep in work stuff this week, but I did find time to make this stack diagram...
8 months ago
2
8 months ago
I’ve been buried neck deep in work stuff this week, but I did find time to make this stack diagram of the world, inspired by the xkcd Dependency cartoon. Randall Munroe draws better than me, but in my favor, I use more colors. Did you know most of the high-purity quartz needed...
The Marginalian
Polyvagal Theory and the Neurobiology of Connection: The Science of Rupture, Repair, and Reciprocity "The mind narrates what the nervous system knows. Story follows state."
6 months ago
The Elysian
Asia and the future of the nation state A discussion with Benjamin Perry.
a month ago
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in stories and suggested that some stories might explore certain questions not because those questions are interesting, but because engaging with those questions allows the story to...
The American Scholar
Good Intentions The post Good Intentions appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
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."
6 months ago
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
2
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Colder Here Than Organized Charity' Hugh Kenner’s first extant letter to Guy Davenport is dated March 7, 1958. Its manner is at once...
9 months ago
19
9 months ago
Hugh Kenner’s first extant letter to Guy Davenport is dated March 7, 1958. Its manner is at once business-like and chatty: “I hope subsequent activities haven’t yet sufficed to obliterate our Boston dinner last fall from your memory.” The men had first met in 1953 when each...
Ben Borgers
Work-Life Separation in College
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Highest Kind of Verbal Exercise' John Updike published “Kenneths” in the July 5, 1958 issue of The New Yorker and collected it in his...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
John Updike published “Kenneths” in the July 5, 1958 issue of The New Yorker and collected it in his second book of poems, Telephone Poles (1963):  “Rexroth and Patchen and Fearing—their mothers Perhaps could distinguish their sons from the others, But I am unable. My inner eye...
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Goals In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing every day for 30 days and not posting once in...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing every day for 30 days and not posting once in two months. Frankly, neither of those is good for me. I like writing because it clarifies my own thoughts. Sometimes it seems useful to others. I like to be useful (“utility” can...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Those Move Easiest Who Have Learned to Dance' Hugh Kenner glosses a well-known couplet in Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711) by...
a year ago
8
a year ago
Hugh Kenner glosses a well-known couplet in Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711) by reference to Newton’s second law of motion (published in 1687 in his Principia Mathematica, one year before Pope’s birth) and “numerous points of disequilibrium”:  “True ease in writing...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Ordinary, Helpless, Moody Human Talk' Long ago I came to accept that certain writers will never be enjoyed by certain readers. I’m...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Long ago I came to accept that certain writers will never be enjoyed by certain readers. I’m no matchmaker and don’t have the soul of a proselytizer. I resent people telling me what I ought to like. On Wednesday two young missionaries came to the front door. One launched his...
Josh Thompson
STOP YELLING ON THE INTERNET, or, A Better Use for the Caps Lock Key My current project is to learn to type using an alternative keyboard layout called Colemak. QWERTY...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
My current project is to learn to type using an alternative keyboard layout called Colemak. QWERTY has problems. Here are a few, shamelessly borrowed from Colemak.com It places very rare letters in the best positions, so your fingers have to move a lot more. It suffers from a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Forlorn Hope' Published in the February 1950 issue of Partisan Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Published in the February 1950 issue of Partisan Review was a “symposium” -- always a feature beloved by editors and loquacious respondents – this one titled “Religion and the Intellectuals.” Such things tend to be heavy on posturing and vast generalizations. I might have been...
The American Scholar
The Challenge The post The Challenge appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
So you want to work remotely... Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is contemplating next steps for work. He is great at what he does, and is thinking about what direction to go in his life. He’s young, and thought working remotely sounded pretty cool. I...
sbensu
Payments vs Transfers Transfer means to move money but payment means "exchanging goods or services". A payment system has...
a year ago
2
a year ago
Transfer means to move money but payment means "exchanging goods or services". A payment system has a lot more requirements than a transfer system and I rarely see the crypto ecosystem acknowledge these when building "payment" products.
Wuthering...
Books I Read in July 2023 How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month, but I promise I had a good excuse. ...
a year ago
52
a year ago
How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month, but I promise I had a good excuse.  Posts on Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism will appear this month, I swear, or at least hope.  My eventual excuse this month will be, I am afraid, even better. Still, I...
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.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Silent Conversation' “To talk and dispute are more the practices of the Platonic school than to read and meditate....
10 months ago
13
10 months ago
“To talk and dispute are more the practices of the Platonic school than to read and meditate. Talkative men seldom read. This is among the few truths which appear the more strange the more we reflect upon them. For what is reading but silent conversation?”  This passage is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Monsoons, Boredom, Stench' R.L. Barth takes as the epigraph to his new chapbook, Ghost Story (Scienter Press, Louisville, Ky.,...
9 months ago
22
9 months ago
R.L. Barth takes as the epigraph to his new chapbook, Ghost Story (Scienter Press, Louisville, Ky., 2024), a passage from Dr. Johnson’s Idler essay for September 2, 1758:  “I suppose every man is shocked when he hears how frequently soldiers are wishing for war. The wish is not...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For Grief and Lost Belief' In the U.S., Memorial Day is observed on the final Monday in May – this year, May 27....
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
In the U.S., Memorial Day is observed on the final Monday in May – this year, May 27. Formerly called Decoration Day, it started after the Civil War as commemoration of the nation’s war dead. The meaning and observance of holidays tend to dilute with time. When I was a boy, the...
Ben Borgers
Draft Now, Publish Later
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Majoring in more
a year ago
The Elysian
Yes, Taylor Swift is just as genius as Mary Shelley The video from our live event.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Give it 30 days Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish? If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish? If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what were your goals? Lose weight/get in shape Make more money/start budgeting Learn a language Learn a skill Read more Stop doing something (smoking, drinking) Statistically, all of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Stimulated to Vigour and Activity' When John Ruskin (b. 1819) traveled as a boy, his father packed in his luggage four small volumes of...
8 months ago
27
8 months ago
When John Ruskin (b. 1819) traveled as a boy, his father packed in his luggage four small volumes of Dr. Johnson’s Rambler and Idler essays. In his peculiar memoir Praeterita (1885), Ruskin tells us “had it not been for constant reading of the Bible, I might probably have...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Until He Un-Alived' “But at bottom poetry, like all art, is inextricably bound up with giving pleasure, and if a poet...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
“But at bottom poetry, like all art, is inextricably bound up with giving pleasure, and if a poet loses his pleasure-seeking audience he has lost the only audience worth having, for which the dutiful mob that signs on every September is no substitute.”  Philip Larkin’s...
Josh Thompson
I Once Worked Hard When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career there. I was a college graduate (that means something, right?) working at a climbing gym, part time, teaching seven-year-olds how to climb at about $10 an hour. I had no idea what I...
Ben Borgers
Driving School Corruption
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Stickies: Spatial note-taking
a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I Read in September 2023 Despite all evidence I hope to wrap up the Greek philosophy project within the next couple of...
a year ago
49
a year ago
Despite all evidence I hope to wrap up the Greek philosophy project within the next couple of weeks.  A medical deadline approaches.  That will help. As usual, I read good books.   PHILOSOPHY & SELF-HELP Letters from a Stoic (c. 60), Seneca - good timing for some...
sbensu
Incentives as selection effects When you apply a new incentive, you select for a new population that prefers the incentive.
6 months ago
The Marginalian
The Great Blue Heron, Signs vs. Omens, and Our Search for Meaning One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I watched a great blue heron rise slow and prehistoric through the morning mist, carrying the sky on her back. In the years since, the heron has become the closest thing I have to what...
Josh Thompson
Illdefined Success is Unattainable We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t seem daunting, it’s not much of a project, and you should either ramp it up until it’s daunting, or discard it. So - we have a daunting project. Now what? If you’re like me, you’ll...
The Marginalian
Ursula K. Le Guin on Change, Menopause as Rebirth, and the Civilizational Value of Elders "Into the space ship, Granny."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Three Poems The post Three Poems appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The Marginalian
An Illustrated Ode to Love’s Secret Knowledge When Dante wrote of “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars,” he was shining a sidewise...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
When Dante wrote of “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars,” he was shining a sidewise gleam on the secret knowledge of the universe, the knowledge by which everything coheres. All love is an outstretched hand of curiosity reaching for knowledge — a tender...
The Marginalian
On Giving Up: Adam Phillips on Knowing What You Want, the Art of Self-Revision, and the Courage to... "Not being able to give up is not to be able to allow for loss, for vulnerability; not to be able to...
7 months ago
61
7 months ago
"Not being able to give up is not to be able to allow for loss, for vulnerability; not to be able to allow for the passing of time, and the revisions it brings."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Their Thoughts, Their Longings, Hopes, Their Fate' A new record: stopped three times at train crossings in a single day without leaving the city,...
10 months ago
24
10 months ago
A new record: stopped three times at train crossings in a single day without leaving the city, driving only to the university library and back, twenty-two miles. Because of its sprawling, unplanned nature, Houston is a dense web of train tracks, as John Bainbridge, a staff writer...
The American Scholar
“Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared...
5 months ago
41
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Old Man in the Dark' Philip Larkin shares with us the mundane complaints of the middle class, the lusts and anxieties of...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Philip Larkin shares with us the mundane complaints of the middle class, the lusts and anxieties of people unburdened with wealth and pull. He grows deaf, loses hair, juggles girlfriends, gains weight and drinks too much. As a librarian he works hard. He will never be hip except...
Escaping Flatland
On limitations that hide in your blindspot and how to find them
9 months ago
The American Scholar
Anchoring Shards of Memory We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of...
3 months ago
21
3 months ago
We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Were Nothing in Ourselves Nothing More' “[H]e gave us some of the best poems of our times. And, after all, one must thank a man for what he...
a year ago
50
a year ago
“[H]e gave us some of the best poems of our times. And, after all, one must thank a man for what he has done and not condemn him for his failures.”  A timely, guilt-inducing reminder. It’s easy to scold a writer for not producing a masterpiece each time he goes to work. Good...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Half the Pleasure of Reading New Books' “[M]ost American boys are hurried into active life so early, that even the few who have the...
a year ago
11
a year ago
“[M]ost American boys are hurried into active life so early, that even the few who have the possibility of developing literary taste have scarcely time to do so. Unless they read the great English classics in high school and in college, they never find time to read them.”  In...
The Marginalian
Practical Mysticism: Evelyn Underhill’s Stunning Century-Old Manifesto for Secular Transcendence and... "Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels;...
a year ago
58
a year ago
"Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they misrepresent."
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Ill-Assorted Collection' A friend has broken up with her boyfriend and he is launching protracted salvos of nasty emails in...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
A friend has broken up with her boyfriend and he is launching protracted salvos of nasty emails in her direction. As prose they are better than average. There have been no threats of violence and little profanity. The ex’s weapon of choice is a detailed critique of every aspect...
Ben Borgers
I Don’t Get Getir
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Passing Tribute of a Sigh' “The cemetery lives an intense, passion-filled life.”  Anyone who has walked a cemetery and paid...
a year ago
12
a year ago
“The cemetery lives an intense, passion-filled life.”  Anyone who has walked a cemetery and paid respectful attention -- and I mean as a tourist, when the visit is not obligatory – will understand. Once I tramped the beautifully landscaped Vale Cemetery (1857) in downtown...
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...
2 months ago
40
2 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.
This Space
39 Books: 2010 This series has sailed into the doldrum years. Reading has become less of a headlong existential...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
This series has sailed into the doldrum years. Reading has become less of a headlong existential adventure than something one does, a pastime, a hobby, something you tell a quiz show presenter how you relax: "I like to read, Brad." By this time I had given up reviewing...
Josh Thompson
How to Ask Questions of Experts To Gain More than Just Answers Recently, I co-led a session at Turing with Regis Boudinot, a Turing grad who works at GitLab. We...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
Recently, I co-led a session at Turing with Regis Boudinot, a Turing grad who works at GitLab. We discussed two things: asking good questions having a good workflow After the session, I promised an overview of what we discussed. Here’s that overview for “Asking good questions”....
This Space
39 Books: 1989 Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on...
7 months ago
28
7 months ago
Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on TV and in newspapers, but in 1989 I read Alexander Stuart's The War Zone that did exactly that. It was later made into a controversial film. The only thing I remember of the...
The Marginalian
Look Up: The Illustrated Story of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, Who Laid the Groundwork for... How a brilliant woman rose against the tide of her time to fathom the mysteries of space.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Consider Seriously My Condition' Soon after he is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Venezuela and has finished...
a year ago
30
a year ago
Soon after he is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Venezuela and has finished salvaging everything useful from the wreckage, Robinson Crusoe builds a calendar:  “After I had been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of...
Ben Borgers
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets Who Are Plain and Gladsome' Being or pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite ruses...
9 months ago
32
9 months ago
Being or pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite ruses (“Books are a load of crap”). It’s certain to rile the pompous and pretentious, so all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the sputtering. I’ve happened on a first-rate anthology of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'How Quickly It Would Slip By' “[S]ome of the memories I can now summon up have a greater intensity than the events...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
“[S]ome of the memories I can now summon up have a greater intensity than the events themselves seemed to possess at the time, or rather – since memory has a filter of its own, sometimes surprising in what it suppresses or retains, but always significant – some of them stand out...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Has Embalmed So Many Eminent Persons' Over the years I wrote thousands of pieces – hard news stories, features, columns, obituaries,...
8 months ago
26
8 months ago
Over the years I wrote thousands of pieces – hard news stories, features, columns, obituaries, reviews of books, movies and music – for the newspapers where I worked in Ohio, Indiana and New York. They’re clipped and saved in a chaotic file cabinet. Most, I, like the rest of the...
The Marginalian
Little Black Hole: A Tender Cosmic Fable About How to Live with Loss Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our galaxy a black hole with the mass of four billion suns screams its open-mouth kiss of oblivion. Someday it will swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever...
This Space
39 Books: 2003 This year I read Robert Antelme's The Human Race for the first time. I was nonplussed. The strange...
7 months ago
64
7 months ago
This year I read Robert Antelme's The Human Race for the first time. I was nonplussed. The strange title, closer to popular sociology than memoir, should have been a warning. This was not quite the horror story one imagines of memoirs from those who survived Nazi concentration...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nothing Given Us to Keep Is Lost' Howard Nemerov reminded me not of Walden Pond in Concord but of a smaller, less storied pond at the...
6 months ago
18
6 months ago
Howard Nemerov reminded me not of Walden Pond in Concord but of a smaller, less storied pond at the opposite end of Massachusetts, near Lee in the Berkshires. I was there to interview Paul Metcalf (1917-99) and his wife Nancy for my newspaper in the summer of 1988. Paul was a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Books, Books, Books' The name I remembered but not what he had written, which is hardly unusual when the writer...
a year ago
8
a year ago
The name I remembered but not what he had written, which is hardly unusual when the writer in question was first encountered in childhood and his readability hasn’t survived into adulthood. Very young children pay attention to the work, not its author. In this case, “Wynken,...
Robert Caro
Anatomy of a $9 Burglary “Anatomy of a $9 Burglary” is among Caro’s best early writing. When police arrested a criminal, all...
a year ago
2
a year ago
“Anatomy of a $9 Burglary” is among Caro’s best early writing. When police arrested a criminal, all signs indicated a simple case of burglar
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
9
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 Elysian
The unbearable necessity of being online On loving and loathing the internet as an artist and why we need to be here anyway.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Grand Marxist Stalin Did Ten In' In one of the essential books published in the twentieth century, The Great Terror (1968; rev. 1990,...
a week ago
8
a week ago
In one of the essential books published in the twentieth century, The Great Terror (1968; rev. 1990, 2008), Robert Conquest (1917-2015) writes matter-of-factly: “We are told in recent Soviet articles that on 12 December 1937 alone, Stalin and Molotov sanctioned 3,167 death...
The American Scholar
The Source The post The Source appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Someone Who Could Never Be a Peasant' I first encountered Robert Alter in 1970 in the issue of TriQuarterly devoted to Vladimir Nabokov,...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
I first encountered Robert Alter in 1970 in the issue of TriQuarterly devoted to Vladimir Nabokov, already one of my favorite writers. Alter’s contribution was “Invitation to a Beheading: Nabokov and the Art of Politics,” which Nabokov later described as “practically flawless.” A...
Escaping Flatland
The third chair I remembered my loneliness; I felt it with a defencelessness that I had denied myself at the time....
10 months ago
20
10 months ago
I remembered my loneliness; I felt it with a defencelessness that I had denied myself at the time. The feeling that writing was impossible; that I would never find a place in the world that felt like home; that no one except my wife would ever care about me, about the things that...
Josh Thompson
Cheap fix to night-time teeth grinding A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night. Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night. Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing marbles. Others who grind their teeth give themselves headaches, or wake themselves up at night. You can’t really stop yourself from grinding your teeth, since you’re asleep. You can...
The Marginalian
Between Mathematics and the Miraculous: The Stunning Pendulum Drawings of Swiss Healer and Artist... Emma Kunz (May 23, 1892–January 16, 1963) was forty-six and the world was aflame with war when she...
7 months ago
49
7 months ago
Emma Kunz (May 23, 1892–January 16, 1963) was forty-six and the world was aflame with war when she became an artist. She had worked at a knitting factory and as a housekeeper. She had written poetry, publishing a collection titled Life in the interlude between the two World Wars....
The American Scholar
Agent 37 The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Ben Borgers
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Swimming in July Just the pure physical joy of thrashing your arms around in water. To fill the kid’s buckets and...
5 months ago
54
5 months ago
Just the pure physical joy of thrashing your arms around in water. To fill the kid’s buckets and throw it at the sun—the way the water falls apart into drops, and then into mist, the way a rainbow appears for a second and is gone.
Ben Borgers
Semester 3
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Landscape in One Word!' “When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone,...
a month ago
16
a month ago
“When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone, that is more than enough.” Enough for what? Probably to have established a minimum standard of decency and contentment. Jules Renard (1864-1910) is no stuffy moralist. There’s...
The American Scholar
This Woman’s Work Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism The post This Woman’s Work appeared...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism The post This Woman’s Work appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Structural Holes and Good Ideas Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and academic literature, as applied to somewhat practical-ish domains. These pages serve as a brief overview of a paper, and I’ll be able to link to this paper down the road when I what...
sbensu
Industrial macros Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to the database.
Ben Borgers
The Web is a Superpower
over a year ago
Wuthering...
The Nicomachean Ethics - moderate Aristotle - clarity within the limits of the subject matter I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul...
a year ago
42
a year ago
I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul Morson’s extraordinary new study of the ethics if Russian literature: Our discussion will be adequate if it achieves clarity within the limits of the subject matter.  For precision...
sbensu
Designing for support teams Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from...
10 months ago
2
10 months ago
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from consumer software. Here are some things to keep in mind.
Ben Borgers
Covid Test Instructions
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
A Small Life Radius
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Superior Graduate School' When I was permitted, starting at age eleven, to ride the CTS bus into downtown Cleveland and spend...
a year ago
7
a year ago
When I was permitted, starting at age eleven, to ride the CTS bus into downtown Cleveland and spend the day as I wished, with money earned from a paper route and an erratically dispensed allowance, it was always a bookish outing. The bus let me off on Public Square near...
Josh Thompson
Corollas and U-Hauls These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a lot, and a lot of work went into it. When moving across the country, you have a few options. You could higher a moving company, who comes and boxes up your house, packs a truck,...
Ben Borgers
Waking up Early
over a year ago
This Space
“Can there be a pure narrative?” The question opening Maurice Blanchot’s essay The Experience of Proust* has always drawn me back,...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
The question opening Maurice Blanchot’s essay The Experience of Proust* has always drawn me back, not to secure a yes or a no, but to keep the question of pure narrative open in its initial uncertainty, perhaps, rather, in its impossibility, as it appears to make reading and...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 4 - It was an eerie, desolate night. At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three big changes hit The Story of the Stone...
17 hours ago
8
17 hours ago
At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three big changes hit The Story of the Stone (c. 1760 / 1791).  First, David Hawkes, the original translator of the Penguin edition, dies; John Minford finishes the job.  Second, the author of the novel, Cao Xueqin, dies,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Signs His Name in Sparks' By trade my father was an ironworker for the City of Cleveland’s Municipal Light, always called...
5 months ago
41
5 months ago
By trade my father was an ironworker for the City of Cleveland’s Municipal Light, always called “Muny Light." At home he was a welder, specializing in wrought-iron railings. His aesthetic sense could be summarized in a single word: big. Or heavy. Everything he built was...
Josh Thompson
Limitations of My Own Thinking I sometimes make recommendations, or at least recount a story that has “actionable insights”....
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
I sometimes make recommendations, or at least recount a story that has “actionable insights”. Anytime this happens, I start tripping over myself with warnings and qualifying statements. Here’s what would happen: I would make a recommendation (“start a side project to help get a...
Josh Thompson
"A delicate mix of chess... and bear wrestling" Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer to sport as “lead” climbing from here on out. Sorry, trad climbers). If someone is enjoying top roping, (or bouldering) why should they take on the work of learning to lead climb,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Dead in Their Silences Keep Me in Memory' Edwin Muir (1887-1959) I first knew as the translator with his wife Willa of Kafka’s novels...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Edwin Muir (1887-1959) I first knew as the translator with his wife Willa of Kafka’s novels and stories. I remember chancing on The Castle at the public library in the mid-sixties, knowing nothing about Kafka. Only now do I appreciate the debts incurred – to Kafka, to the Muirs....
Anecdotal Evidence
'With All Its Philistinism and Coarseness' My roommate freshman year was the son of a Slovak father and an Austrian mother who had emigrated to...
a month ago
21
a month ago
My roommate freshman year was the son of a Slovak father and an Austrian mother who had emigrated to the U.S. after World War II. Mike was trilingual from birth, without an accent unless it was a Cleveland accent that I couldn’t hear because it was mine as well. His tastes often...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And in the Darkness Comes the Light' Chard Powers Smith (1894-1977) was a latecomer to the protracted Era of American Writers with Three...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Chard Powers Smith (1894-1977) was a latecomer to the protracted Era of American Writers with Three Names, coming decades after John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell and William Dean Howells. Smith is probably more thoroughly forgotten than the others, though in 1939 he...
Ben Borgers
Bubble Tea Snobbery
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Experience Machine: Cognitive Philosopher Andy Clark on the Power of Expectation and How the... "We are never simply seeing what’s 'really there,' stripped bare of our own anticipations or...
a year ago
27
a year ago
"We are never simply seeing what’s 'really there,' stripped bare of our own anticipations or insulated from our own past experiences. Instead, all human experience is part phantom — the product of deep-set predictions."
This Space
39 Books: 2009 The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't already written about and among those few that I feel able to write about. For 2009 there is one outstanding exception: another book about a writer exiled in Paris. Already in this...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Beautiful Lighthearted Perfection' Who is the quintessential American? Who embodies E pluribus unum? Who, at the intergalactic council,...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
Who is the quintessential American? Who embodies E pluribus unum? Who, at the intergalactic council, might represent our nation (and species, for that matter)? I nominate Louis Armstrong. Other names come to mind: Abraham Lincoln, Jacques Barzun, Ralph Ellison, perhaps...
This Space
39 Books: 2000 In 1998 my friend John Harris mentioned that he was travelling to the US so I asked if he could pick...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
In 1998 my friend John Harris mentioned that he was travelling to the US so I asked if he could pick up a copy of the new translation of Peter Handke's My Year in the No-man's Bay, not available over here. He was the first to tell me about this new website called Amazon. This is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Stand for the Unacademic' “I stand for the un-Academic: the anti-Academic.” As do most of the better sort among writers and...
9 months ago
16
9 months ago
“I stand for the un-Academic: the anti-Academic.” As do most of the better sort among writers and readers. Something vital was lost when the profs colonized and laid claim to literature. John Gross puts it like this in The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters (1969; rev. ed....
Anecdotal Evidence
'Even Erudition is Possible Outside Academe' A reader tells me he earned his B.A. in English several years ago and now he works for a non-profit...
5 months ago
25
5 months ago
A reader tells me he earned his B.A. in English several years ago and now he works for a non-profit that pushes “arts education,” whatever that might be. I don’t take him for an idealist. He’s bright, personable, an ambitious reader and bored. Our culture doesn’t know what to do...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in October 2023 The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that...
a year ago
65
a year ago
The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that is why the fiction list is so mystery-heavy, and for that matter so long.  Many of these books, the post-surgery group, are not just short but light, well-suited for the invalid's...
Josh Thompson
2015: The year I didn't think much? I generally think that if I write what I am thinking about, I can think about it a lot better....
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I generally think that if I write what I am thinking about, I can think about it a lot better. Writing has a clarifying effect (or is it affect?) on thought.  If that’s the case, I just didn’t think much in 2015: I wrote about 45 things in 2013 and 2014. I wrote 8 in 2015. I’m...
Josh Thompson
Dream Big, and Build Optionality We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location independent living, being wealthy/choosing to do work that interests you, enjoying “simple” things. The list could go on, and on, and on. But then we go right along doing all the normal...
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
57
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...
Wuthering...
Diogenes Laertius and the fun of the fragment We have the complete Plato, from multiple manuscript sources.  We have lost every published book...
a year ago
36
a year ago
We have the complete Plato, from multiple manuscript sources.  We have lost every published book (widely copied scroll) of Aristotle’s, but a large mass of what are perhaps transcribed lecture notes survived, barely, in a single manuscript, so that is our Aristotle.  I don’t know...
The American Scholar
“Death Fugue” by Paul Celan Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Death Fugue” by Paul Celan appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
54
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Death Fugue” by Paul Celan appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Comet & Star: A Cosmic Fable about the Rhythms and Consolations of Friendship People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the...
2 months ago
33
2 months ago
People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the common gravitational center is strong enough, they return, they stay. Sometimes they travel on. But they change us all the same. The great consolation of the cosmic order is the...
This Space
A modern heretic Literature can be defined by the sense of the imminence of a revelation which does not in fact...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
Literature can be defined by the sense of the imminence of a revelation which does not in fact occur. I used this line, apparently from Borges, as an epigram to an essay in the early days of online writing. I can't remember what book it came from and after searching I found a...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 359 ...
a week ago
This Space
Kafka's great fire The centenary of Kafka's death was marked twelve years late. His diary records it in September...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
The centenary of Kafka's death was marked twelve years late. His diary records it in September 1912: This story, The Judgment, I wrote at one sitting during the night of the 22nd-23rd, from ten o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning. I was hardly able to pull my legs...
The Marginalian
The Moon and the Yew Tree: Patti Smith Reads Sylvia Plath’s Haunting Portrait of Depression "This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Some Lessons Learned While Preparing for Two Technical Talks A few weeks ago, I gave two talks about Ruby and Rails: An 8-minute lightning talk about using...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I gave two talks about Ruby and Rails: An 8-minute lightning talk about using .count vs .size in ActiveRecord query methods A 30-minute talk at the Boulder Ruby Group arguing that developers should embrace working with non-development business functions, and the...
Ben Borgers
Sunk Cost Chinese
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Instagram’s Lifespan
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
RailsConf Presentation: 'Junior' Developers are a Solution to Many of your Problems Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able to help. Shoot me an email at joshthompson@hey.com or book some time to talk at https://calendly.com/joshthompson/coffee. This talk is available on railsconf.org, here:...
The Marginalian
Kinship in the Light of Conscience: Peter Kropotkin on the Crucial Difference Between Love,... “Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental...
3 months ago
30
3 months ago
“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental definition of solidarity — this tender recognition of our interdependence and fundamental kinship, deeper than sympathy, wider than love. Half a century after Whitman’s atomic...
Ben Borgers
Things Go Downhill After We Leave
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Smart Dinner Jacket and Patent Leather Pumps' I was never strictly a crime reporter but several times I covered the cops-and-courts beat, which...
a year ago
11
a year ago
I was never strictly a crime reporter but several times I covered the cops-and-courts beat, which was more genteel and less interesting than it sounds. Reading the police blotter each morning or scanning new filings in the county clerk’s office left this reporter feeling less...
Josh Thompson
Deliberate Practice in Programming with Avdi Grimm and the Rake gem I’ve had the concept of Deliberate Practice stuck in my head for a while. I want to improve at...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I’ve had the concept of Deliberate Practice stuck in my head for a while. I want to improve at things (all the things!) in general, but writing and reading code, specifically. Writing and reading code is germane to my primary occupation (software developer) and drives most of my...
This Space
This kingdom by the sea Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young boy’s beauty becomes sexual obsession. This is how BBC Radio 4's In Our Time sets up a discussion of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Time Is Tight' My brother is dying as he lived – stubbornly. He has been in hospice for two weeks and is...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
My brother is dying as he lived – stubbornly. He has been in hospice for two weeks and is failing incrementally. On Monday we were swapping memories and he stopped talking on Tuesday, the same day he stopped eating. He lies on his back on the hospice bed, mouth open, eyes staring...
The Marginalian
John Quincy Adams on Impostor Syndrome and the True Measure of Success “You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All...
6 months ago
54
6 months ago
“You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All expectation is a story of the possible. Every person lives inside a story of who they are, what they are worth, and what is possible for their life, and suffers in proportion to how...
ben-mini
Building FirstMover I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly...
3 months ago
1
3 months ago
I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly all of them pointed me to StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned NYC real estate search platform. Some of my more Type-A friends gave me extra helpful advice: Narrow your search to 2-4...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shitcan the Sass' George Turberville writes in his epilogue to Epitaphes, Epigrams, Songs and Sonets (1567): “I write...
6 months ago
35
6 months ago
George Turberville writes in his epilogue to Epitaphes, Epigrams, Songs and Sonets (1567): “I write but of familiar stuffe because my stile is lowe.” Today we call him a master of the “plain style,” the opposite of ornate poeticizing, along with his contemporaries George...
The Marginalian
Some Thoughts about the Ocean and the Universe How to bear the gravity of being.
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Rigor of Angels: Human Nature and the Nature of Reality "What we are striving for lies inside us; we find ourselves in the world and the world in...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Moment Before the Germans Will Arrive' A Jewish friend writes: “The distraction of the war and its repercussions around the world is making...
a year ago
22
a year ago
A Jewish friend writes: “The distraction of the war and its repercussions around the world is making concentration on other things difficult.  . . . I wish I could tune the news out. But the stakes for the future of Israel and of Jewish life generally are too great for me to be...
Ben Borgers
“21” by Patrick Roche
over a year ago
Steven Scrawls
Word Rot Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been...
a year ago
2
a year ago
Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been faced in some form by someone who came before you. That person may have already shared the story of that challenge, and that story might have melded with other tales to form collective...
The Marginalian
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name "Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined."
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He’s a Person of Joy, a Fanatic' Unlike my sons, I can’t listen to music while working – that is, writing. When the music is good,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Unlike my sons, I can’t listen to music while working – that is, writing. When the music is good, that’s what I’m doing, listening. Otherwise, I don’t need a soundtrack for my life. I would find that annoyingly attention-splitting. What I do instead is periodically take a break...
Josh Thompson
62 lessons learned after one year of full-time travel Kristi and I put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Kristi and I put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time last year.  Samples: Kristi 1. Josh and I are such a good team, and we balance each other.  We’ve figured out our strengths and how to contribute to our successes together. It’s...
Ben Borgers
2023 in review
11 months ago
The Marginalian
Nothing: The Illustrated Story of How John Cage Revolutionized Music Through Silence "We make our lives by what we love."
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
MacOS: Keyboard Shortcut to Toggle Bookmarks Bar in Firefox A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser,...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser, instead of Chrome. Turns out, Firefox is great! It was a near-seamless transition, and Firefox has a much lower memory footprint, as well as features Chrome does not have, like...
Josh Thompson
The Housing Market Is Absolutely Insane: How To Fix It I had a brief exchange with a good friend recently: The housing market is indeed insane. This...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I had a brief exchange with a good friend recently: The housing market is indeed insane. This problem that we’re both discussing is: Unbelievable ($650,000 for a fixer upper) Oppressive (“unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate...
Josh Thompson
Learning Spanish: Conversation connectors I’m learning Spanish right now,  as I’ve mentioned. The bad news is I’ve been in some state...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
I’m learning Spanish right now,  as I’ve mentioned. The bad news is I’ve been in some state of learning spanish for the better part of the last 15 years. My mom’s parents came here from Paraguay, and so she and her siblings are all native Spanish speakers, plus their spouses....
Wuthering...
The best books of 2023, in a sense - "Aren't you tired of reading?" Last January seems even more distant than usual at this time of year.  It will likely not...
11 months ago
13
11 months ago
Last January seems even more distant than usual at this time of year.  It will likely not surprise anyone that 2023 now comes with a strong feeling of Before and After.  So I will indulge in the “facetious and silly” exercise of identifying the best books I read in 2023.  Sorting...
Steven Scrawls
Stone Hands Reaching Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself touching a stone forearm. It’s cold, of course, and it’s coarser than skin, but tracing along the arms is enough to bring back memories of being comforted, of being held, when I was a...
This Space
39 Books: 2006 My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The...
7 months ago
35
7 months ago
My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The Human Race. Instead I wondered if I could say something about Timothy Hyman's Sienese Painting. While I have little or no feeling for art, I am drawn to reading about it. The book's...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Appear to the Public to be Some Sort of Miracle' On Christmas Eve 1890, Chekhov writes to his friend and editor Alexi Suvorin:  “I believe in both...
4 months ago
36
4 months ago
On Christmas Eve 1890, Chekhov writes to his friend and editor Alexi Suvorin:  “I believe in both [Robert] Koch and spermine, and I praise the Lord. Kochines, spermines, etc. all appear to the public to be some sort of miracle that has sprung unexpectedly from someone’s head like...
The Marginalian
Hermann Hesse on Discovering the Soul Beneath the Self and the Key to Finding Peace "Self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel...
10 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mind Quite Vacant Is a Mind Distress’d' I’ll be going halftime at the university, effective July 1, in preparation for retiring later this...
6 months ago
52
6 months ago
I’ll be going halftime at the university, effective July 1, in preparation for retiring later this year. I knew a guy in high school who already yearned for retirement despite never having had a job, whereas I’d been working since I was twelve. He wanted to play golf and go...
Josh Thompson
Boulder Ruby Group meetup notes Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App Boulder Ruby Group Monthly...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App Boulder Ruby Group Monthly Meetup @Recurly Offices, Feb 13, 2018 Slides are available here on Dropbox Git Push, Git Paid Here’s the “Git Push, Git Paid” t-shirt I mentioned: Thoughtbot designed these, and it...
The American Scholar
“One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
62
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Pristine Caldera of Consonants' The subject of quarks came up in conversation with an electrical engineer. We didn’t linger but I...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
The subject of quarks came up in conversation with an electrical engineer. We didn’t linger but I got to explain its etymology. The word for the subatomic particle was coined by the physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who borrowed it from Finnegans Wake: “Three quarks for Muster Mark!”...
The Marginalian
Blue Glass Not long after writing about the bowerbird’s enchantment in blue, I walked out of my house and...
11 months ago
36
11 months ago
Not long after writing about the bowerbird’s enchantment in blue, I walked out of my house and gasped at the sight of what looked like two extraordinary jewels sparkling on a bed of yellow leaves, right there on the sidewalk — chunks of cobalt glass, much larger than what a...
The American Scholar
“Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The...
4 months ago
17
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
a month ago
Wuthering...
Books I read, and desks I saw, in July - hoping he might tell me, / tell me what the waves don't... Right, July, July, so long ago.  I was on the road a little bit, making literary pilgrimages. ...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
Right, July, July, so long ago.  I was on the road a little bit, making literary pilgrimages.  Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for example, to Herman Melville’s Arrowhead: On this spot, not at this exact desk but in front of this exact window, Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick,...
The Marginalian
Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Embracing Change in Relationships and the Key Pattern for Nourishing Love "All living relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building...
10 months ago
sbensu
How to: friction logs Friction logs are a technique to improve your own products and understand others. You use the...
a year ago
1
a year ago
Friction logs are a technique to improve your own products and understand others. You use the produdct the way a real user would and write down every single moment you experience some form of negative emotion.
Steven Scrawls
You Are Not Incompressible You Are Not Incompressible can be summarised as: walking, walking, walking, bit of fighting...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
You Are Not Incompressible can be summarised as: walking, walking, walking, bit of fighting with orcs, walking, walking, walking, anguish, walking, walking, walking, bit more fighting with orcs, walking, walking, walking. —Goodreads review of “The Lord of the Rings” Im returning...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Book You Know You Don’t Understand' Some thirty years ago, at his request, I met with an author in upstate New York who wanted me to...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Some thirty years ago, at his request, I met with an author in upstate New York who wanted me to write a feature story for my newspaper about him and the small-press book he had written. Frank had been lobbying me for weeks by telephone. He was middle-aged but carried himself...
The Marginalian
The Art of Withstanding Abandonment: The Patience of the Penguin and How Evolution Invented Faith “Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other...
4 months ago
25
4 months ago
“Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other are not separated,” Simone Weil wrote in her soulful meditation on the paradox of closeness and separation. To be separated from a loved one — in space or in silence, by choice or...
Ben Borgers
Thinking in Silence
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Culmination of Contemporary Economism' For half a century my brother earned his living making picture frames, some of which were themselves...
3 months ago
30
3 months ago
For half a century my brother earned his living making picture frames, some of which were themselves works of art. In later years he relied more on accounts with hotel chains and the glass office buildings in downtown Cleveland. Frames for these corporate accounts he called...
Wuthering...
Planning next year's readalong opportunities - Greek philosophy and Roman plays If only I had another idea as good as reading all the Greek plays in order.  But I do have ideas. ...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
If only I had another idea as good as reading all the Greek plays in order.  But I do have ideas. 1. Roman plays.  Up to five Roman playwrights have survived: the comedians Plautus and Terence and the tragedian Seneca, along with two plays under his name that were likely...
The Marginalian
The Majesty and Mystery of Night Migration, in a Stunning Poem Turned to Music “Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote...
a year ago
9
a year ago
“Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his love letter to the hours of darkness, composed while flying alone over the Sahara Desert. No aliveness animates the nocturne with more grandeur than the migration of birds....
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Similar Universality of Voice' I reproach my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than English. I...
5 months ago
35
5 months ago
I reproach my younger self for being lazy and not seriously studying languages other than English. I dabbled in Latin and German and retain a smattering of vocabulary and little grammar. If I were to study another language today my first choice would likely be Italian in order to...
Josh Thompson
Whole Messages in Slack I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy,...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy, #DenverDevs). My last job, I used Slack. The job before that, I got the whole company on Slack. I’ve used it for years. Slack delivers value to me, and induces little anxiety, and...
The American Scholar
Rage, Muse The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or forgotten The post Rage, Muse appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
Life update + open thread and a few fragments of essays
11 months ago
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Moralizing Purge of the Past' "I think we are living through a moralizing purge of the past, similar to the one that early...
8 months ago
19
8 months ago
"I think we are living through a moralizing purge of the past, similar to the one that early Christianity inflicted on the same pagan learning. There will be another Dark Ages in our lifetimes; and another Renaissance, too, but not one that we will live to see.”  I’m...
Josh Thompson
Your "Community" Should Not Be Local When Kristi and I were planning our move from Maryland to Colorado, the biggest challenge we...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
When Kristi and I were planning our move from Maryland to Colorado, the biggest challenge we anticipated was no longer being a short drive away from my sister, Jen, and Kristi’s brother, Richard. There are a few reasons, however, that we decided the benefits of moving...
The Marginalian
Joy as a Force of Resistance and a Halo of Loss, with a Nick Cave Song and a Lisel Mueller Poem In this world heavy with robust reasons for despair, joy is a stubborn courage we must not...
3 months ago
30
3 months ago
In this world heavy with robust reasons for despair, joy is a stubborn courage we must not surrender, a fulcrum of personal power we must not yield to cynicism, blame, or any other costume of helplessness. “Experience of conflict and a load of suffering has taught me that what...
Ben Borgers
Tufts Meal Plans Are a Scam
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Guests” by Celia Thaxter  Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter  appeared first on The American...
5 days ago
Josh Thompson
Crock Pots are Foolproof, Right? A while back I got together with my good friend Dustin. I had an evening free, wanted to cook, AND...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
A while back I got together with my good friend Dustin. I had an evening free, wanted to cook, AND hang out with good friends. I wanted to try a really good looking recipe, and watch Django Unchained. The cooking instructions for the recipe was “cook on low for 7-9 hours”. I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Remarkable Literary Judgment' She was twelve or thirteen, a girl in a hooded sweatshirt seated beside a woman I assume was her...
4 months ago
22
4 months ago
She was twelve or thirteen, a girl in a hooded sweatshirt seated beside a woman I assume was her mother. She sat on the aisle two rows ahead of me. The cabin of the plane glowed with screens while she was reading Andrew R. MacAndrew’s 1961 translation of Dead Souls, the Signet...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It's Uncanny. The Past Is Not Dead.' “The Ferryman’s Due,” my article about Andrew Rickard and his Obolus Press, is published in the...
4 days ago
6
4 days ago
“The Ferryman’s Due,” my article about Andrew Rickard and his Obolus Press, is published in the January 2025 issue of The New Criterion.: “Rickard often encounters such passages, in which the author he is translating seems to speak for him. ‘It’s uncanny. The past is not dead,’...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Important Part of Anyone’s Reading' A variation on the question Matthew Walther reports getting in his essay “The One Hundred Pages...
2 weeks ago
15
2 weeks ago
A variation on the question Matthew Walther reports getting in his essay “The One Hundred Pages Strategy” – “How do you do it?” – is the one I get when a workman or friend visits my home office where most of my books are shelved: “You read all these?” I can reply with one of...
The American Scholar
Stereotypes and the City What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show? The post Stereotypes and the City...
8 months ago
18
8 months ago
What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show? The post Stereotypes and the City appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
No One You Love Is Ever Dead: Hemingway on the Most Devastating of Losses and the Meaning of Life "We must live it, now, a day at a time and be very careful not to hurt each other."
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Lofty Vehicle, High Dudgeon' A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside...
a year ago
13
a year ago
A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside George Chapman’s version of Homer from the seventeenth century. Like me, she’s a reader not a scholar, and like generations of students and common readers I first encountered Chapman...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Leave Him, Full of Envy' Without resorting to clues, who do you think Eugenio Montale is talking about:  “He is a strong,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Without resorting to clues, who do you think Eugenio Montale is talking about:  “He is a strong, cordial, human man, whom one seems to have always known.”   One hint: it’s a poet. Among major poets, the pickings are slim. Strong? Scratch Cavafy. Cordial? There goes Frost. “Human...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is the Andy Warhol of Art' Guy Davenport was our Johnny Appleseed of culture. He was an academic who published in Harper’s and...
6 months ago
39
6 months ago
Guy Davenport was our Johnny Appleseed of culture. He was an academic who published in Harper’s and the Journal of the American Institute of Architects; Life magazine and Art News; National Review and Inquiry. He sowed allusions without regard for pretentious pieties. He loved...
Anecdotal Evidence
'If You Want Less Trouble, Plow the Sky' I had a suburban kid’s notion of life on a farm -- hearty yeomen and Jeffersonian gentleman-farmers...
a year ago
13
a year ago
I had a suburban kid’s notion of life on a farm -- hearty yeomen and Jeffersonian gentleman-farmers tilling the soil and bringing in the sheaves. Working for rural newspapers in the Midwest and upstate New York educated me to the realities of mortgages, tractor accidents,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Aesthetically They Are Still Delightful' “Early Ellington records are like vintage cars. They are not as he or anyone else would make them...
7 months ago
37
7 months ago
“Early Ellington records are like vintage cars. They are not as he or anyone else would make them nowadays, but historically they are still important and aesthetically they are still delightful.”  Let's not confine Philip Larkin’s conclusion exclusively to Duke Ellington’s early...
sbensu
Default blind In a software business, it is hard to even know what is going on.
3 months ago
Wuthering...
Books I Read in August 2023 As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted to more important things.  Plenty of...
a year ago
392
a year ago
As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted to more important things.  Plenty of energy to read, though. With a respite in September, I should soon be able to write a bit on the Greek philosophers I have been reading.  The Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics work...
The Marginalian
A Victorian Visionary’s Prescient Case for Animal Rights and Vegetarianism "Once upon a time your fore-fathers made no scruple about not only killing, but also eating their...
a year ago
Blog -...
Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is reminiscent of another Nobel Prize winning autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!. Dr. Mullis and Dr. Feynman had a great deal in common, including their incomprehensible...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Art and Practice of Reading Aloud to Others' A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells me that since the start of the COVID-19...
11 months ago
32
11 months ago
A longtime reader in Philadelphia, a retired attorney, tells me that since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown he has been reading books aloud to his wife, most recently The Wife of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis. His list of more than a dozen titles includes Moby-Dick (“our overall...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Personal Affections' Only recently have I learned of the entrenched snobbery in certain quarters against anthologies. It...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
Only recently have I learned of the entrenched snobbery in certain quarters against anthologies. It seems to be rooted in the conviction that readers ought to read writers in their original volumes, not someone’s curated selection, or something like that. In common with most...
Ben Borgers
Optimizing Kiwi for scale
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Indiana Absurd Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd...
7 months ago
31
7 months ago
Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd 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.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'I’m Tickled to Death When They Call Me Comic' Like porkchops, fame is highly perishable. Writers once read by millions – think of James Michener...
9 months ago
17
9 months ago
Like porkchops, fame is highly perishable. Writers once read by millions – think of James Michener and, at a far more accomplished level, James Gould Cozzens – have evaporated from literary memory. Newspaper writing and journalism in general are especially biodegradable. Who...
Anecdotal Evidence
'And the Third Is To Be Kind.' A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and Solitude (David R. Godine, 2002) is a collection of the...
a year ago
22
a year ago
A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and Solitude (David R. Godine, 2002) is a collection of the late publisher/poet’s photographs of artists well-known and obscure. Williams was no snob when it came to talent and genius. He photographs Stevie Smith, Guy Davenport...
The American Scholar
Let Us Compare Mythologies Exploding the Canon, Episode 4 The post Let Us Compare Mythologies appeared first on The American...
8 months ago
29
8 months ago
Exploding the Canon, Episode 4 The post Let Us Compare Mythologies appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Ferdowsi's Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings - No one has any knowledge of those first days... My little Persian literature syllabus in March was built on Aboloqasem Ferdowsi’s gigantic epic...
8 months ago
61
8 months ago
My little Persian literature syllabus in March was built on Aboloqasem Ferdowsi’s gigantic epic Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (1010), a slender 850 pages in Dick Davis’s 2006 prose (mostly) translation.  He added another 100 pages to the 2016 edition, whether filling out...
Ben Borgers
Hash Tables [explained for anyone]
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Used to Stand in Front of the Windows' In my dream I was staring through the window of a bookstore, worried that sunlight would bleach the...
11 months ago
17
11 months ago
In my dream I was staring through the window of a bookstore, worried that sunlight would bleach the color from the cover of a book. At the center of a display that seemed to be made of cotton gauze was not just any book but a first edition of Ulysses. In the rare books collection...
The Elysian
Please come up with wildly speculative futures Inside my writing philosophy.
8 months ago
Josh Thompson
Daily Exercise - Russian Kettlebells Exercise. It makes most people either cringe or salivate. Those of you who love exercising for the...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
Exercise. It makes most people either cringe or salivate. Those of you who love exercising for the sake of exercising - you can stop reading now. This information is probably not relevant to you. Those of you who don’t like to exercise, but know you really should exercise...
Anecdotal Evidence
'That Is My Ambition Here' Does anyone still read “Invictus”? Is it part of any school’s curriculum? It was as late as 1965,...
a year ago
6
a year ago
Does anyone still read “Invictus”? Is it part of any school’s curriculum? It was as late as 1965, when Miss Wagy had us memorize it in eighth-grade English. The poem is irresistible for recitation, whether privately in times of self-doubt or at the Kiwanis luncheon: “I am...
Ben Borgers
5% of things go wrong
a year ago
The American Scholar
Good Vibrations One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared...
8 months ago
24
8 months ago
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
ben-mini
Root Canals and Bill Gates In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me: This...
6 months ago
1
6 months ago
In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me: This could just be me, but I spent a remarkable amount of my childhood worrying about root canals. Horror stories like these created a universal phobia that dentists suck and that’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Principle Is Growth' I remember learning as a kid the word dendrology while reading about maple trees (we had seven in...
9 months ago
26
9 months ago
I remember learning as a kid the word dendrology while reading about maple trees (we had seven in our front yard – all are gone, one carried away by a tornado) in a field guide: the study of trees. From the Greek for “tree.” A close synonym is silvics, this time from the Latin. I...
The Marginalian
Yes: William Stafford’s Poetic Calibration of Perspective "No guarantees in this life."
11 months ago
Ben Borgers
Reading with RSS
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Poetry of Reality: Robert Louis Stevenson on What Makes Life Worth Living "The true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'More Than Documentary' “Literariness, as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
“Literariness, as I understand it, does not necessarily entail any particular set of formal qualities. What makes a work literary is the ability to be understood and appreciated outside the context of its origin. That is why a literary work, however valuable as a document of its...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Amateurism (in the Original Sense of the Term)' Autodidact as a noun and adjective arrived in English in 1534 via French, from a Latinized form of...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
Autodidact as a noun and adjective arrived in English in 1534 via French, from a Latinized form of the Greek for “self-taught.” The range of the word’s uses in our university-smitten age is vast. Some academics apply it to anyone without an advanced degree who presumes to have...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Immense Special Talent' D.G. Myers and I met in person only once, in March 2012, when David came to Houston to see his...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
D.G. Myers and I met in person only once, in March 2012, when David came to Houston to see his oncologist. We had lunch in a Mexican restaurant and talked for hours, then I drove him to the hospital. He gave me the Library of America’s collection of Henry James’ writings on...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Bubbles and Chuckles Along' “Persistently obscure writers will usually be found to be defective human beings.”  A truth I had...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
“Persistently obscure writers will usually be found to be defective human beings.”  A truth I had been waiting to hear for much of my life. Willful obscurity (which is not the same as complexity) is favored by writers contemptuous of readers. Avant-gardistes often fancy...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Word Can Open Like a Tomb to Reveal Its Past' The poet William Wenthe opens his essay “The Glamour of Words” with a provocative memory. It was the...
8 months ago
32
8 months ago
The poet William Wenthe opens his essay “The Glamour of Words” with a provocative memory. It was the anniversary of Charles Dickens’ death and he was in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey, where Dickens is interred and his sister is speaking to mark the occasion. Wenthe looks...
Ben Borgers
Kid Money
over a year ago
The Elysian
Hint #3 I'm publishing a new print collection in one week.
3 months ago
The Marginalian
Trust, Betrayal, and the Nexus of Mathematics and Morality: The Prisoner’s Dilemma Animated Illuminating the pitfalls of the mind in felt and gingerbread.
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Cosmogony of You We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive....
3 weeks ago
10
3 weeks ago
We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive. Wonder is always an edge state, its edge so sharp it threatens to rupture the mundane and sever us from what we mistake for reality — the TV, the townhouse, the trauma narrative. If we...
The American Scholar
Imperiled Planet The ecological havoc we’ve wrought The post Imperiled Planet appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
20
3 months ago
The ecological havoc we’ve wrought The post Imperiled Planet appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
One year of my work, printed The Elysian Volume II is here.
2 months ago
The Marginalian
The Broadest Portal to Joy "Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in...
a year ago
54
a year ago
"Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in the midst of rhizomatic care that extends in every direction, spatially, temporally, spiritually."
Josh Thompson
Two Critical Books and Two Critical Articles (For 'Software People') I speak with many persons who are considering becoming software developers (usually by way of a...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I speak with many persons who are considering becoming software developers (usually by way of a program like the Flatiron School or the Turing School). I’m a graduate of the Turing School, and have written a lot about the program, like: My reflections on Turing an 8-part guide to...
Josh Thompson
Context Setting for certain patterns & classes of relationship difficulties I’ve been “catching up” a lot in my life lately. Some of that catching up involves bringing up to...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
I’ve been “catching up” a lot in my life lately. Some of that catching up involves bringing up to speed various people I’ve not spoken too (or spoken too much, or openly, or recently, or ever, or some combination thereof). I am strongly biased towards written/editable/consistent...
Ben Borgers
The TikTok Peer Group
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Hymn” by A. R. Ammons Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Hymn” by A. R. Ammons appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
29
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Hymn” by A. R. Ammons appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Class Council: “Brutally Honest”
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz - What I wanted now was the adventure of being... Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to me because of its unusual use of the Pre-Socratic philosophers.  This is a domestic novel, a fine example of, borrowing from Trollope, the way we live now (or, to me, the way they...
Ben Borgers
Strong Hobbies
over a year ago
ribbonfarm
The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5...
8 months ago
1
8 months ago
My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5 most successful memes) is featured in this cute little collectible book, The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet put together by Yancey Strickler (whom you may have heard of as the...
Josh Thompson
Constraints Constraints are USUALLY seen in a negative light. Google defines it as: a limitation or...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
Constraints are USUALLY seen in a negative light. Google defines it as: a limitation or restriction Here’s some example constraints that we find in the world around us, which we often view as an annoyance or frustration: I have to be to work by 9a I have to get up at 7a I have...
The American Scholar
Corona Chasers You never forget your first solar eclipse The post Corona Chasers appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
22
6 months ago
You never forget your first solar eclipse The post Corona Chasers appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Whispering Parasite' In Act III, Scene 2 of Henry IV, Part 1, Prince Hal hopes to convince his father that he has mended...
10 months ago
23
10 months ago
In Act III, Scene 2 of Henry IV, Part 1, Prince Hal hopes to convince his father that he has mended his ways, is a worthy successor and will in the future avoid the riff raff (“rude society,” the king calls them; i.e., Falstaff). Hal says:  “So please your majesty, I would I...
Josh Thompson
Workflow for developers (AKA My current tools) I’m a huge fan of “a good workflow”. Makes you think better. This is still under construction, but...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
I’m a huge fan of “a good workflow”. Makes you think better. This is still under construction, but I’m fleshing out all the tools, tidbits, and other things that serve me well every day as I build my skills as a developer. It will always be a work in progress, but will hopefully...
The Marginalian
Bunny & Tree: A Tender Wordless Parable of Friendship and the Improbable Saviors That Make Life... Traversing the landscape of life on the wings of trust.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Continuous Glucose Monitors: Why & What This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the...
7 months ago
1
7 months ago
This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the rear of my upper arm, usually sparks a question or two, I’ve usually stumbled through a response, now I can simply pass this page along to anyone who asks. Since maybe 2018, every...
The American Scholar
Laura S. Lewis Welding trash into treasure The post Laura S. Lewis appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The Marginalian
The Transcendent Brain: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Spirituality for the Science-Spirited A largehearted invitation to "stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without...
a year ago
32
a year ago
A largehearted invitation to "stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without fear, without anxiety, but instead with awe and wonder at this strange and beautiful cosmos we find ourselves in."
Wuthering...
Books I read in November 2023 Recovery from surgery leads to a long list of books. (Everything is going well, by the way,...
a year ago
48
a year ago
Recovery from surgery leads to a long list of books. (Everything is going well, by the way, thanks).  My idea of a “comfort read” is a book on a subject about which I do not know much – start me over at the beginning – thus my enthusiastic Indian literature project, which is...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 357 ...
3 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Past Is Alive and Stirring With Objects' Published in the January 1821 issue of London Magazine are thematically linked essays by two...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
Published in the January 1821 issue of London Magazine are thematically linked essays by two friends, Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt: “New Year’s Eve” and “On the Past and Future,” respectively. Lamb’s is better known, and I'm aware of several readers who, like me, read it...
Wuthering...
Notes on Aristotle's Poetics - What are the conditions on which the tragic effect depends? Aristotle did not invent literary criticism with Poetics(late 4th c. BCE, maybe) – we just read The...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
Aristotle did not invent literary criticism with Poetics(late 4th c. BCE, maybe) – we just read The Frogs – but for centuries it was the base of Western literary criticism, not a source of insight but rather a set of rules.  The Unities, the Tragic Flaw, catharsis, the ranking of...
This Space
39 Books: 1996 It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my...
7 months ago
36
7 months ago
It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my student housemate's innocent-looking hardback edition of Nicholson Baker's The Fermata in which Arno Strine writes about how he can actually stop time. The title refers to the...
This Space
"When now?" Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on social media and literary podcasts, and have appeared multiple times in newspaper Books of the Year choices and on prize shortlists, and one that even won a prize. I wanted to see...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where I Went and Cannot Come Again' A brief return to the Russian word toska mentioned in Thursday’s post by Gary Saul Morson in...
8 months ago
38
8 months ago
A brief return to the Russian word toska mentioned in Thursday’s post by Gary Saul Morson in reference to Chekhov. Dave Lull alerted me to Nabokov’s explication of the word in his translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. In the second of the four volumes, Nabokov writes:  “No...
The Marginalian
The Other Significant Others: Living and Loving Outside the Confines of Conventional Friendship and... "While we weaken friendships by expecting too little of them, we undermine romantic relationships by...
9 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Age of Terror' If “terror” meant anything to me as a kid it was probably an episode of The Twilight Zone. Some were...
a year ago
8
a year ago
If “terror” meant anything to me as a kid it was probably an episode of The Twilight Zone. Some were ridiculous, others remain watchable after more than sixty years. At least one, “Night Call,” left me so frightened I didn’t want to return to my darkened bedroom. I grew up safe...
The Marginalian
A Taste of How It Feels to Be Free: Pioneering Psychoanalyst Karen Horney on Our Inner Conflicts,... "The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be...
a year ago
48
a year ago
"The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, to be able to put the whole of oneself into one’s feelings, one’s work, one’s beliefs. It can be approximated only to the extent that...
ribbonfarm
Protocol Entrepreneurship I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the...
9 months ago
2
9 months ago
I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the Call for Applications. I’d appreciate any help getting it in front of the right candidates. The core of it is what we’re calling Protocol Improvement Grants (PIGs): 90k for a team...
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...
a month ago
13
a month ago
The German folklorists who helped build a nation The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorhpses, Canto 6 - the sexual assaults - Because the lewdness of the Gods was so blazed... Back to Ovid. First, I have just begun Paul Barolsky’s Ovid and the Metamorphoses of Modern Art...
10 months ago
21
10 months ago
Back to Ovid. First, I have just begun Paul Barolsky’s Ovid and the Metamorphoses of Modern Art from Boticelli to Picasso (2014), a work of art history about Ovid written in the spirit of Ovid.  The book is of the highest interest, and is a long way from the catalogue of...
Escaping Flatland
Socratic dialogue with kids I’m simply trying to understand how she thinks. When she answers in a way that does not match my...
a year ago
12
a year ago
I’m simply trying to understand how she thinks. When she answers in a way that does not match my understanding—that is interesting to me.
Ben Borgers
Pluto was 2006??
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential... "To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
LeetCode: Words From Characters, and Benchmarking Solutions I recently worked through a LeetCode problem. The first run was pretty brutal. It took (what felt...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
I recently worked through a LeetCode problem. The first run was pretty brutal. It took (what felt like) forever, and I was not content with my solution. Even better, it passed the test cases given while building the solution, but failed on submission. So, once I fixed it so it...
The Marginalian
An Almanac of Birds: Divinations for Uncertain Days I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously underappreciated, is coming to love someone who loves it. As we enter each other’s worlds in love — whatever its shape or species — we double our way of seeing, broaden our way of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Laurels All Are Cut' A thoughtful reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the English...
9 months ago
14
9 months ago
A thoughtful reader, knowing of my fondness for A.E. Housman’s poems, has sent me the English composer John Ireland’s 1928 setting for a verse from Last Poems (1922, that literary annus mirabilis). The baritone is Mark Stone; the pianist, Sholto Kynoch. Here is Housman’s poem,...
Josh Thompson
Write It Now The original post note from October 5, 2021: This was typed up/published in about 20 minutes, took...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
The original post note from October 5, 2021: This was typed up/published in about 20 minutes, took 2x as long as I wish it had. I could make it 10x better with another hour of work, but I only have 20 minutes. I’m a fan of “conceptual frameworks” This concept has been important...
Escaping Flatland
Almost everyone I’ve met would be well-served thinking more about what to focus on Including me
11 months ago
The Marginalian
Youth and Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what...
a year ago
52
a year ago
A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Commonplace Insights' The Center for Popular Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio was founded in...
3 months ago
20
3 months ago
The Center for Popular Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio was founded in 1970, the year I entered BG as a freshman. Today it’s the only institution in the country to have a Department of Popular Culture. As an English major I hung around with professors who...
Josh Thompson
Switching to Jekyll Why I switched to Jekyll A few days ago, I was really feeling the urge to write a short little blog...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Why I switched to Jekyll A few days ago, I was really feeling the urge to write a short little blog post. So, I put it in a gist on Github. I’m an advocate of writing publicly, and making it a habit, so why was I putting it in a gist, instead of here, on my website, where I...
The American Scholar
What Comes Naturally The post What Comes Naturally appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Gratitude 3x/day Earlier this year, I read The Miracle Morning, which promises (paraphrasing here): If you do these...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Earlier this year, I read The Miracle Morning, which promises (paraphrasing here): If you do these seven things every morning you’ll be the most amazing person you’ve ever met. OK, it’s not exactly that bold, but it’s not far off. It wasn’t a terrible book, it had lots of good...
Blog -...
Book Review - Open Open by Andre Agassi is a narrative tour de force. I literally could not put it down. I usually...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
Open by Andre Agassi is a narrative tour de force. I literally could not put it down. I usually have four to six books on the go at any time, but all of them were put on pause for the day and a half it took me to devour this book.
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest... “All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
a month ago
21
a month ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
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...
8 months ago
Ben Borgers
Monday, January 17, 2022
over a year ago