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ribbonfarm
Bangalore Meetup Report Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal for organizing. I think this is the first meetup I’ve done since the last Refactor Camp in 2019. It was kinda last minute, which is why I only posted on Substack rather than here...
Josh Thompson
My all-time favorite question to ask people (and why you should ask it too) I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today, and Kristi and I had dinner with them. Half way through the meal, I asked my all-time favorite question: If you could go back to twenty five year old you, and tell yourself...
Ben Borgers
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
over a year ago
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
15
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...
Wuthering...
there is no wisdom in me; and that is true enough - what is knowledge? - Theaetetus and Parmenides The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised me.  The early attempts to...
over a year ago
59
over a year ago
The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised me.  The early attempts to systematically understand, without the help of the revealed truth of religion, difficult concepts like existence and virtue led, almost immediately, to the question of whether anyone can...
The Marginalian
Mushrooms and Our Search for Meaning This essay was originally published as the cover story in the Summer 2025 issue of Orion Magazine....
a month ago
17
a month ago
This essay was originally published as the cover story in the Summer 2025 issue of Orion Magazine. “Who are you?” the caterpillar barks at Alice from atop the giant mushroom, and Alice, never quite having considered the question, mutters a child’s version of Emily Dickinson’s...
The Marginalian
The Human Scale: Oliver Sacks on How to Save Humanity from Itself "...or there will be genocide, atomic bombs, and we'll all perish and take the planet with us."
a year ago
The Elysian
Your alternatives to democracy Entries to the March writing prompt.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Friends Don't Let Friends Shortrope The first in a series about how to be a better belayer. Short rope [shawrt-rohp] verb The act of...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
The first in a series about how to be a better belayer. Short rope [shawrt-rohp] verb The act of not giving sufficient rope to your climber. Getting short roped is bad. It’s not necessarily dangerous, nor does it cause you to take a whip (it can, of course) but the real reason...
The American Scholar
“The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell appeared first on The...
10 months ago
63
10 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Bird of Night” by Randall Jarrell appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Notes on the movie Frozen, which I dislike, and Suzume, which is excellent Introduction part of a longer series of drafts about the novel experience of being a parent, to...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Introduction part of a longer series of drafts about the novel experience of being a parent, to someone currently best defined as ‘a young child’. I once wrote a lot about my experiences of things, then took a break, and drafted this blog post on a few pages of yellow legal pad,...
Josh Thompson
Paths In Which I Am Interested this is still in draft status this page serves as a placeholder for various paths I’m interested...
a year ago
23
a year ago
this is still in draft status this page serves as a placeholder for various paths I’m interested in. I hope to bring attention to “linear parks”, or a park that functions more in size and shape to a street, crossing blocks of distance, but maintaining park vibes throughout. Path...
Ben Borgers
Website Like a Library
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mind Shorn of History Is Vacuous' “April 17 [in 1778], being Good Friday, I waited on Johnson, as usual.”  As was the custom in...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
“April 17 [in 1778], being Good Friday, I waited on Johnson, as usual.”  As was the custom in school when I was growing up, I learned history as a rollcall of great men and memorized dates. “Abraham Lincoln” and “December 7, 1941” plugged leaks in my obligatory knowledge and that...
Josh Thompson
Three Android Apps I Use Every Day (and maybe you'll use them too) I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that make my life better, and might do the same for you. (If you’re an iPhone user, just Google for the iOS version of the following tools. They’re all out there) Rewire App:...
Ben Borgers
We’re All Powered by Electric Meat
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'After So Many Deaths I Live and Write' One needn’t be a fetishist or even a book collector – reader is close enough -- to prize an...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
One needn’t be a fetishist or even a book collector – reader is close enough -- to prize an “association copy,” a term neatly defined here: “A book that belonged to or was annotated by the author, someone close to the author, a famous or noteworthy person, or someone especially...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Intensely and Permanently Interested in Literature' Another request for a reading list from a young reader. Any reply will be incomplete and...
5 months ago
23
5 months ago
Another request for a reading list from a young reader. Any reply will be incomplete and risk discouraging aspiring literati. The only infallible inducement to literature is personal pleasure, a notoriously subjective criterion. I love Gibbon and Doughty, and you may find them...
The American Scholar
Rage, Muse The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or...
11 months ago
73
11 months ago
The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or forgotten The post Rage, Muse appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Work of Art: Inside the Creative Process of Beloved Artists, Poets, Musicians, and Other Makes... “The true artist,” Beethoven wrote in his touching letter of advice to a young girl aspiring to be...
a year ago
50
a year ago
“The true artist,” Beethoven wrote in his touching letter of advice to a young girl aspiring to be an artist, “is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.” The choreographer Martha Graham called this particular shade of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 My Mom Taught Me But really, my mom loved to shop and I’ve inherited that skill. I’ll call it a skill because Mom...
10 months ago
11
10 months ago
But really, my mom loved to shop and I’ve inherited that skill. I’ll call it a skill because Mom knew quality. She loved things made by hand. By real people. Things that were made well and lasted. — Dan Cederholm Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'All of Time is Cut in Two—Before and After' Rhina Espaillat writes the sonnet “How Like a Winter . . .” (And After All: Poems, 2018) in...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Rhina Espaillat writes the sonnet “How Like a Winter . . .” (And After All: Poems, 2018) in response to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 17:  “So Shakespeare describes absence. Yes—but no, since every winter ends, gentling to spring’s tentative yellows, then the green and blue and bolder...
Ben Borgers
JumboCode+
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Wherever You Are, Stop What You’re Doing Nothing magnifies life — in the proper sense of the word, rooted in the Latin for “to make greater,...
6 months ago
75
6 months ago
Nothing magnifies life — in the proper sense of the word, rooted in the Latin for “to make greater, to glorify” — more than the act of noticing its details, and nothing sanctifies it more: Kneeling to look at a lichen is a devotional act. We bless our own lives by recognizing and...
Ben Borgers
Blocks recap
over a year ago
The American Scholar
A Portrait of the Scholar The life of Ireland’s towering literary figure became a work of art in its own right The post A...
a month ago
8
a month ago
The life of Ireland’s towering literary figure became a work of art in its own right The post A Portrait of the Scholar appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Links For December 2024 ...
6 months ago
The Elysian
I'm traveling the world to study utopia An update about my life and artistic process.
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ To Comprehend To stand in a landscape that is hard to comprehend is to know that not all that should be celebrated...
a year ago
10
a year ago
To stand in a landscape that is hard to comprehend is to know that not all that should be celebrated is human-made. To understand that to get here, it took hundreds, thousands, millions of denominations of time to render this environment is a lesson in a slow life that we’ve...
The Marginalian
Divinations of the First Light: A Cosmic Poem for the Vera Rubin Observatory At the end of her trailblazing life, having swung open the gate of the possible for women in science...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
At the end of her trailblazing life, having swung open the gate of the possible for women in science with her famous comet discovery, astronomer Maria Mitchell confided in one of her Vassar students that she would rather have authored a great poem than discovered a comet. A...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Filters Our guard is up. Our filters are activated. Our default mode is suspicion. — Jeremy Keith Visit...
10 months ago
11
10 months ago
Our guard is up. Our filters are activated. Our default mode is suspicion. — Jeremy Keith Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
ben-mini
Commoditize Your Complements To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub...
11 months ago
30
11 months ago
To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub lately? Open-source is software that anyone can freely view, use, modify, and share because its code is publicly available on sites like Github and Huggingface. My last coding project alone was...
The American Scholar
Queen of the Night Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark The post Queen of the Night appeared...
9 months ago
70
9 months ago
Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark The post Queen of the Night appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Follow vs. Block In the beginning, you followed someone to see their content in your feed. Now, you block someone to...
a year ago
12
a year ago
In the beginning, you followed someone to see their content in your feed. Now, you block someone to remove them from your feed. That’s the price of an endless algorithmic feed designed to keep you in-app or on-platform, entertained, and eventually (if not already) monetized. A...
Josh Thompson
On Learning As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the context of software development. I am a bit hyperactive when it comes to trying to learn new things. Over the years, I’ve done plenty of ineffective learning, and at least a...
Ben Borgers
Un-figure-out-able Software
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Poco a Poco The post Poco a Poco appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The Marginalian
Center of the Universe: Non-Speaking Autistic Poet Hannah Emerson’s Extraordinary Poem About How to... "Please try to go to hell frequently because you will find the light there."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Set in Seclusion The post Set in Seclusion appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
This Space
"When now?" Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on social media and literary podcasts, and have appeared multiple times in newspaper Books of the Year choices and on prize shortlists, and one that even won a prize. I wanted to see...
The American Scholar
The One Who Got Away The post The One Who Got Away appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 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...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great."
The Marginalian
Imagine Water Otherwise: Robert Macfarlane on the Personhood of Rivers and the Meaning of Aliveness “Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river,” Borges wrote in his timeless...
a month ago
19
a month ago
“Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river,” Borges wrote in his timeless “refutation” of time. “No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,” Nietzsche wrote a century earlier in his directive on how to find yourself....
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cure Death With the Rub of a Dock Leaf' The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely...
5 months ago
18
5 months ago
The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely but recall a devotion to the natural world and to World War I, in which his father fought. Here is “Glossary” (The Candlelight Master, 2020):   “I meet my father in the glossary Who...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Soliloquy for Two' The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases of the Nervous System (1933), remains in print. The Royal College of Physicians has called it “the standard British textbook on his subject.” Brain was also a poet and...
Josh Thompson
Why I use a Kindle Amazon’s e-reader is extremely functional. Most reasons to not use one focus either on practical...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Amazon’s e-reader is extremely functional. Most reasons to not use one focus either on practical issues (depending on something with a battery) or on aesthetic reasons. These are valid issues, of course, but these pale in comparison to the many, many reasons to use a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He’s Not the Only One' My newly graduated youngest son is visiting Thailand with friends from his alma mater, Rice...
a month ago
15
a month ago
My newly graduated youngest son is visiting Thailand with friends from his alma mater, Rice University. Most of the photos he has sent document meals eaten and temples visited, but among them is this one, my favorite image:  The smiling head of the Buddha sunk among the...
The Elysian
Please come up with wildly speculative futures Inside my writing philosophy.
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
On having more interesting ideas “To write well, all you have to do is cultivate your mind and then write what you see.” When I talk...
a year ago
104
a year ago
“To write well, all you have to do is cultivate your mind and then write what you see.” When I talk to people who have worked with their ideas seriously for 10+ years, it feels like I can throw any topic on them and they’ll have an interesting idea, or if not an idea so at least...
Anecdotal Evidence
'You There in Your Straight Row on Row' On Sunday, a friend and I, after lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, visited Kaboom Books here...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
On Sunday, a friend and I, after lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, visited Kaboom Books here in Houston. He left with a stack of books. I found one: Adelaide Crapsey: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Pleiades Press and Gulf Coast, 2018). I know her thanks only to...
The American Scholar
Above the River of Your Longing Two new prompts The post Above the River of Your Longing appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Information of a High School Janitor' A former colleague reminded me of the babysitting job I was given by a newspaper editor some...
a month ago
13
a month ago
A former colleague reminded me of the babysitting job I was given by a newspaper editor some forty years ago. I was the court reporter, covering every level from city police court to the New York Court of Appeals, plus the federal court in the beautiful Art Deco building on...
This Space
The last novel "(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)" John Self's aside in his...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
"(We are, it seems to remind us, always saying goodbye to our children.)" John Self's aside in his review of JM Coetzee's The Death of Jesus captures the pervasive anxiety experienced while reading this novel better than even the most detailed plot summary, which is anyway likely...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Rest Is Silence' Here I pause to remember a forgotten poet who remembered a slightly less forgotten poet – a reminder...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Here I pause to remember a forgotten poet who remembered a slightly less forgotten poet – a reminder that all of us are eminently forgettable, regardless of our purported virtues. Walter de la Mare died on June 22, 1956, at age eighty-three. The journal Poetry assigned William...
The Marginalian
God, Human, Animal, Machine: Consciousness and Our Search for Meaning in the Age of Artificial... An inquiry into the eternal enchantment of why the world exists.
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Last Wonder: D.H. Lawrence on Death and the Best Lifelong Preparation for It "Know thyself, and that thou art mortal. But know thyself, denying that thou art mortal."
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
A Retrospective on Seven Months at Turing Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software engineering program, and it’s been a journey. In no particular order, I’m throwing down thoughts in three general categories: What went well What didn’t go well What I might have...
The Marginalian
An Ecology of Intimacies At its best, an intimate relationship is a symbiote of mutual nourishment — a portable ecosystem of...
a year ago
50
a year ago
At its best, an intimate relationship is a symbiote of mutual nourishment — a portable ecosystem of interdependent growth, undergirded by a mycelial web of trust and tenderness. One is profoundly changed by it and yet becomes more purely oneself as projections give way to...
Josh Thompson
My Thoughts on Eric Weinstein's Thoughts on Pia Kalani's Thoughts Context for two sentances It’s August 8, 2020. The news is full of coronavirus, schools, employment,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Context for two sentances It’s August 8, 2020. The news is full of coronavirus, schools, employment, police brutality, a vaccine, elections, so much politics, China, Tik-Tok, the Twitter-dm-hack-bitcoin-scam-or-was-it-dm-content hack happened. Tiger King, Cheer, Filthy Rich are...
This Space
39 Books: 2009 The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't...
a year ago
93
a year ago
The further I get into this series, the fewer books there are on my yearly lists that I haven't already written about and among those few that I feel able to write about. For 2009 there is one outstanding exception: another book about a writer exiled in Paris. Already in this...
Josh Thompson
A New Old Financial Product I’m going to weave together talk of land value, and financing, and some of the primitives1 around...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I’m going to weave together talk of land value, and financing, and some of the primitives1 around financial products. How much would you pay for a box that lives in your mailbox and delivers $1000 on the first of every month? Would you pay at least $5000, if you felt really...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Where the Bathrooms Have No Name On Thanksgiving this year, Jen and I went on run. Since the morning and lunch were occupied by a...
a year ago
10
a year ago
On Thanksgiving this year, Jen and I went on run. Since the morning and lunch were occupied by a non-traditional set of meals, we departed for our excursion mid-afternoon. Maybe it’s age, maybe it was too much fizzy water at lunch coupled with the runner’s jogging motion but...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Grantland Day 22: Oct 1, 2023 — As we suspect, the weather reports prove wildly inaccurate. At 8,000 feet,...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 22: Oct 1, 2023 — As we suspect, the weather reports prove wildly inaccurate. At 8,000 feet, we’re subject to alpine weather rules. Meaning, isolated storms can cycle in at anytime, and they do. Lightning flashes, thunder cracks. We sleep in fits and starts. I remove the...
Wuthering...
Reading The Peony Pavilion with the teens in The Story of the Stone - That garden is a vast and... The teens living in the garden in the YA romantasy The Story of the Stone spend a lot of time...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
The teens living in the garden in the YA romantasy The Story of the Stone spend a lot of time reading forbidden books, much older YA romantasys.  These books are all famous classical Chinese plays.  Cao Xueqin gives a couple of chapters early on to their reading, including a list...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Show the Poetry of the Commonplace' A friend in Schenectady, N.Y. worked as a lineman for the telephone company for almost half a...
4 months ago
30
4 months ago
A friend in Schenectady, N.Y. worked as a lineman for the telephone company for almost half a century, into his seventies. He was the guy who strapped on a belt and spikes and climbed those sliver-making poles, and later showed rookie linemen the ropes. On the side, Bob was an...
The American Scholar
My Cousin Manya One survivor’s story The post My Cousin Manya appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The Elysian
We’ve raised $50,000—now I’m writing a book! My vision for the future of capitalism has been greenlit. Now let’s make it a reality.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Things Which Make a Life of Ease' R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his...
a month ago
17
a month ago
R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his translation of a well-known epigram by Martial, the Roman master of the pithy form. Bob found it among his papers and doesn’t remember making it. “[T]ranslating something [Ben]...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 366 ...
5 months ago
Steven Scrawls
Against Confidence Against Confidence I hope I never make a habit of writing stuff that makes me feel confident. If my...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Against Confidence I hope I never make a habit of writing stuff that makes me feel confident. If my writing makes me feel confident, it probably has a title like “Look At My Cleverly Constructed Argument/Insight” (subtitle: “Also Look At My Pretty Words”). If I release writing...
Ben Borgers
Brief: AI-summarized news
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Let This Be a Moment A moment when you discover that legacy media is not in your best interest, being fueled by...
6 months ago
19
6 months ago
A moment when you discover that legacy media is not in your best interest, being fueled by advertising and bureaucratic bullshit. If you've worked anywhere, you should understand that no organization is immune to this. A moment when you might consider stepping out of your shoes...
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep appendix: Troubleshooting Errors Pretty much any time I hear the same question twice, I will try to add a section here for it, and...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Pretty much any time I hear the same question twice, I will try to add a section here for it, and make it as findable by future students as possible. Do you have a question not answered here? PLEASE send me a DM in Slack or @ me (I’m josh_t in the Turing slack). I’ll take a...
The Marginalian
How to Love Yourself and How to Love Another: A Playful and Poignant Vintage Illustrated Fable about... The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override this elemental self-reference only with constant vigilance, reminding ourselves again and again as we forget over and over how difficult it is — how nigh impossible — to know what...
Wuthering...
The Bacchae by Euripides - O gods, I see the greatest grief there is. Reading Euripides chronologically, it would be fair to think that however ingenious and inventive...
over a year ago
66
over a year ago
Reading Euripides chronologically, it would be fair to think that however ingenious and inventive Euripides was, he did not write a play quite at the level of Agamemnon or Oedipus the King, at least until his brief exile in Macedon, where he wrote The Bacchae just before his...
Anecdotal Evidence
'People Who Just Love the Proximity of Books' Left in a hefty anthology titled The Faber Book of War Poetry (ed. Kenneth Baker, 1996) was...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
Left in a hefty anthology titled The Faber Book of War Poetry (ed. Kenneth Baker, 1996) was a postcard from O’Gara & Wilson, Ltd. Booksellers in Chicago. More than forty years ago I visited that shop near the University of Chicago and purchased a partial set of Conrad for a...
The Marginalian
A Heron’s Antidote to Fear of Death They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the laboratory in which evolution invented dreams and the cathedral in which it invented faith. “There is grandeur in this view of life,” Darwin consoled himself as his beloved...
Ben Borgers
Did MCAS Matter?
over a year ago
The Elysian
You’d still work if you didn’t have to But it would feel more like play.
12 months ago
Josh Thompson
Redefining Success It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought about writing something here almost every day, but here is why I didn’t: I want to produce “content” that is helpful and relevant to those who might read it. I felt like nothing I...
The American Scholar
“That Day” by Nikki Giovanni Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “That Day” by Nikki Giovanni appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “That Day” by Nikki Giovanni appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rivian's chief software officer says in-car buttons are 'an anomaly' Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. The problem today is that most...
8 months ago
16
8 months ago
Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. The problem today is that most voice assistants are just broken. Sorry Wassym, I'll take a tactile mechanical button in my car anyday. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Midlife Malaise The past few days have felt heavy. In a weird headspace, floating in the middle of space between a...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
The past few days have felt heavy. In a weird headspace, floating in the middle of space between a destination or goal, or rather, a state I aspire to, but seeing a road ahead of which the length is unknown. It feels like a lot of things have been taken, removed, or no longer...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 379 ...
2 months 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...
a year ago
20
a year ago
My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5 most successful memes) is featured in this cute little collectible book, The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet put together by Yancey Strickler (whom you may have heard of as the...
Josh Thompson
Preparing to adopt a habit There are many habits I wish I had. More times than I can count, I have tried to get up early. I...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
There are many habits I wish I had. More times than I can count, I have tried to get up early. I faithfully set my alarm for some crack-of-dawn time that leaves me with a reasonable amount of sleep, but gives me time to myself before I have to get ready for work. Almost as many...
The 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...
a year ago
90
a year 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....
Anecdotal Evidence
'Absolute Anthology' The American poet Len Krisak asks a question common to all serious readers, one that, if...
6 days ago
7
6 days ago
The American poet Len Krisak asks a question common to all serious readers, one that, if posed privately, serves as an honest way to reveal one’s deeper tastes without the social pressures of fashion and snobbery. Think of it as a variation on the “Desert Island” parlor game. It...
Ben Borgers
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
over a year ago
Ploum.net
My colleague Julius My colleague Julius Traduction en français Lazygyu의 한국어 번역 Do you know Julius? You certainly know...
6 months ago
18
6 months ago
My colleague Julius Traduction en français Lazygyu의 한국어 번역 Do you know Julius? You certainly know who I’m talking about! I met Julius at university. A measured, friendly young man. He always wore a smile on his face. What struck me about Julius, aside from his always perfectly...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 358.5 ...
7 months ago
The American Scholar
Up Close The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
Josh Thompson
Be Gentle to You There are many types of people in the world, all with different approaches to “getting stuff done”....
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
There are many types of people in the world, all with different approaches to “getting stuff done”. My approach to doing stuff is different from my wife’s approach. (Who’da thunk?) These two years of marriage have revealed much. One of these “revelations” was this: my sense of...
Wuthering...
it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap - Peter Adamson's Classical Philosophy, the... Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without...
over a year ago
82
over a year ago
Peter Adamson is an English philosopher with a long-running podcast, History of Philosophy without Any Gaps.  What can that mean, without any gaps? We’ve finished Aristotle, and it’s right about here that there would normally be a gap.  In an undergraduate philosophy course you...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The mining of the public domain These sites can only exist because of the work put in by librarians and archivists to collect,...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
These sites can only exist because of the work put in by librarians and archivists to collect, curate, and share these images to begin with. It is a shame that so much of their work was erased so that this site can claim to show you an internet of the future, ‘rich, organized...
Josh Thompson
Planned Unit Design Document (work-in-progress) This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something we bring to the City of Golden for ratification, or whatever needs to happen to get this done in this zone. This document relates to Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Internet trail magic Day 19: Sept 28, 2023 — We pull into a driveway in a quiet and pristine neighborhood. Jen and I...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Day 19: Sept 28, 2023 — We pull into a driveway in a quiet and pristine neighborhood. Jen and I approach the house of people I’ve known for years, but only from the internet. This will be the first time meeting in person. Craig opens the door, and we immediately hug. Following is...
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
8 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Future Web It’s idealistic and very millennial of me to reminiscence the early days of Web innocence, unbound...
6 months ago
32
6 months ago
It’s idealistic and very millennial of me to reminiscence the early days of Web innocence, unbound creativity it hosted and wonderful lack of monetisation of virtually every aspect of being online. We can’t turn back time. But, individually and collectively, we can strive for...
Josh Thompson
On Money (again) Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about,...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about, because there are many different ways we can approach it. It’s easy to feel judged when someone does something with their money that I don’t do with mine. That all said, there...
Josh Thompson
Give it 30 days Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish? If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish? If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what were your goals? Lose weight/get in shape Make more money/start budgeting Learn a language Learn a skill Read more Stop doing something (smoking, drinking) Statistically, all of...
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
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Meet the San Francisco techie using AI to wage war against health insurance denials With the slogan ‘Make your health insurance company cry too,’ Karau’s site makes filing appeals...
10 months ago
39
10 months ago
With the slogan ‘Make your health insurance company cry too,’ Karau’s site makes filing appeals faster and easier. A recent study found that Affordable Care Act patients appeal only about 0.1% of rejected claims, and she hopes her platform will encourage more people to fight...
Astral Codex Ten
Bureaucracy Isn't Measured In Bureaucrats ...
6 months ago
The Marginalian
Cordyceps, the Carpenter Ant, and the Boundaries of the Self: The Strange Science of Zombie Fungi "It is likely that fungi have been manipulating animal minds for much of the time that there have...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Quiet Intent of a Conscious Artist' For the observant – those who revere good prose and other accomplishments of civilization --...
5 months ago
32
5 months ago
For the observant – those who revere good prose and other accomplishments of civilization -- February 12 is doubly a holy day. In 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Hodgenville, Ky. Across the Atlantic, on the same day, Charles Darwin was born in a Georgian-style...
The Elysian
I’d rather have an investor than a publishing contract In pursuit of a better book deal (and record deal and podcast deal...)
a year ago
The Marginalian
We Go to the Park: A Soulful Illustrated Meditation on Our Search for Meaning "Sometimes it feels as if all of life is made up of longing."
10 months ago
The Marginalian
The Work of Wonder: Phillip Glass on Art, Science, and the Most Important Quality of a Visionary Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions that have turned out false — consciousness is not ours alone, nor is grief, nor is play. If there is anything singular about us, it is our capacity to be wonder-smitten by the world...
The American Scholar
Two Names The post Two Names appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Steven Scrawls
Stone Hands Reaching Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself touching a stone forearm. It’s cold, of course, and it’s coarser than skin, but tracing along the arms is enough to bring back memories of being comforted, of being held, when I was a...
The Marginalian
The Two Souls Within: Hermann Hesse on the Dual Life of the Creative Spirit "Like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a...
a year ago
27
a year ago
"Like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a...
Josh Thompson
Cultivate Curiosity, or 'Reasons to be More Childlike' I’ve had an idea rolling around my head. I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I’ve had an idea rolling around my head. I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with positive outcomes in my life, on pretty much any time horizon, be it days, weeks, or decades. Curiosity feels like a tolerable antidote to boredom, though boredom in and of itself is...
The Marginalian
A Republic of the Sensitive: E.M. Forster on the Personal and Political Power of Empaths and the... "I believe in... an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to...
8 months ago
48
8 months ago
"I believe in... an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet."
Ben Borgers
CS 15: Data Structures
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Keepers of the Old Ways Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive The post Keepers of the Old Ways...
5 months ago
58
5 months ago
Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive The post Keepers of the Old Ways appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Type. Publish. Done. Yesterday I read How the Hell do I Prioritize Work, Blog & Find Balance. The author of the letter is...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Yesterday I read How the Hell do I Prioritize Work, Blog & Find Balance. The author of the letter is a busy, accomplished guy and still manages to write regularly.  He said, in short: I sit down, and I write. I’ve done it a lot, so I’m not bad at it. I don’t often proof read my...
Ben Borgers
Recording Screencasts
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Draft Now, Publish Later
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2025 - Call For Organizers ...
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Pebble Is a Perfect Creature' My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry...
5 months ago
29
5 months ago
My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry to say the psychologists and sociologists got their hands on it first, but there’s nothing new about so simple a human gesture. The word is adopted from the courtship rituals of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'At a Quarter a Tome' I owe a significant chunk of my education to the existence of paperback books. By “education” I...
4 weeks ago
20
4 weeks ago
I owe a significant chunk of my education to the existence of paperback books. By “education” I don’t mean what I pretended to do while in the company of professors, though many of them assigned books published in soft covers. I mean self-assigned literature, beginning as a kid...
Josh Thompson
Feedback pt. 2 Traditional Feedback is Explicit Feedback is the means by which any system makes changes. From the...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Traditional Feedback is Explicit Feedback is the means by which any system makes changes. From the gene pool to the swimming pool, feedback works to eliminate the insufficient and improve the sufficient. (See what I did with the “pool” thing?) Your car gives you feedback if the...
Ben Borgers
Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 378 ...
2 months ago
The American Scholar
The Power of the Common Soul Ives, music-making, and hope The post The Power of the Common Soul appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Now Reopen for Business California re-opened on Tuesday and literally overnight, it feels like everything changed. And it...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
California re-opened on Tuesday and literally overnight, it feels like everything changed. And it has. The streets are busy again, clear voices can be heard all over, and people are emerging from their cocoons at their pace. It feels like whiplash: going from riding with one...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Be A Property Owner And Not A Renter On The Internet We are tenants with landlords who want to make sure that we can’t leave the building or go hang out...
6 months ago
36
6 months ago
We are tenants with landlords who want to make sure that we can’t leave the building or go hang out with friends elsewhere, all while showing us how happy we should be with the limitations imposed on us. — Den Delimarsky A long, weighty one, but very worth the read. Visit...
The Marginalian
Against Self-Improvement: Adam Phillips on the Danger of Treating Ourselves as Pathological Patients... "So much depends on what we can make of what happens to us."
4 months ago
ben-mini
IMG_0416 Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”...
8 months ago
34
8 months ago
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app. The feature worked… really well. In fact, YouTube reported a 1700% increase in total video uploads...
Ben Borgers
Best Type of Bathroom Lock
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Jonathan Franzen on How to Write About Nature, with a Side of Rachel Carson and Alice in Wonderland I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read....
a year ago
88
a year ago
I grew up loving Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My grandmother read it to me before I could read. I read it to myself as soon as I could. I loved the strangeness of it, and the tenderness. As a child mathematician, I loved knowing that a grown mathematician had written it. But...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Island Within With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no beginning and no end,...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no beginning and no end, and perhaps, to the unmindful, no meaning. To those who remain anchored emerges buried treasure from every line. I kept being drawn back in, not as an addiction, but, as I...
The Marginalian
How We Render Reality: Attention as an Instrument of Love "Since our consciousness plays some part in what comes into being, the play of attention can both...
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
"Since our consciousness plays some part in what comes into being, the play of attention can both create and destroy, but it never leaves its object unchanged."
Idle Words
Effective Political Giving With less than two months left before the election, this is an explainer for the politically...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
With less than two months left before the election, this is an explainer for the politically panicked. You're anxious, you feel the need to do something, and you have a little money to spare. Who should you give it to? My goal here is not to sell you on specific candidates...
The American Scholar
Turning the World to Powder Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder...
a year ago
74
a year ago
Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Earliest of My Friends Is Gone' I often speak or exchange texts with my nephew. Soon he’ll turn thirty-six, but he lives in...
3 months ago
27
3 months ago
I often speak or exchange texts with my nephew. Soon he’ll turn thirty-six, but he lives in Cleveland, 1,200 miles away, and I seldom see him. Distance warps the sense of duration, so I think of him as frozen in his early twenties. We spoke on Sunday and for the first time since...
Wuthering...
Books Read in May 2024 – Some are certainly knowing what they are meaning, some are certainly not... A month without writing anything.  Plenty of reading, though. FICTIONS The Autobiography of an...
a year ago
95
a year ago
A month without writing anything.  Plenty of reading, though. FICTIONS The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), James Weldon Johnson The Making of Americans (1925), Gertrude Stein – read over the course of months.  The quotation up above is from p. 783.  I will write about...
The American Scholar
Up Close The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
Working Out, Working In: Applying the Six Principles of Athletic Training to Writing and Creative... The highest and hardest task of life may be to become entirely ourselves — to continually purify and...
a year ago
57
a year ago
The highest and hardest task of life may be to become entirely ourselves — to continually purify and clarify who and what we are, shedding the shoulds of culture, convention, and expectation to discover the innermost musts: those deepest and truest callings of the authentic self,...
Ben Borgers
Teaching Enthusiasm
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
How to take payments via Stripe on a Static Site I’ve had rolling around my head an idea of selling small how-to guides and resources. Things that I...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I’ve had rolling around my head an idea of selling small how-to guides and resources. Things that I wish existed, but have never been able to find. For example, I’ve read a bunch of books that talk about good Object-Oriented design, or refactoring code, or writing better tests....
Josh Thompson
Benchmarking a page protected by a login with Apache Benchmark I’ve been slowly working through The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. I’m taking the ideas and...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’ve been slowly working through The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. I’m taking the ideas and concepts from Nate’s book and working on applying the lessons to the app I work on in my day job. I had a chance to attend Nate’s workshop in Denver a few days ago, as well; while...
ribbonfarm
News from the Universe I did not expect to see auroras in the Seattle area. Or ever in my life without a special...
a year ago
18
a year ago
I did not expect to see auroras in the Seattle area. Or ever in my life without a special bucket-list effort I had no particular intention of making. Though now I might. It feels a bit like I’ve just seen giraffes in the wild without going to Africa. You’ve probably seen some of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ A Second Shot It sunk in. Both the needle and the fact that life had indeed changed. I turned to my left and...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
It sunk in. Both the needle and the fact that life had indeed changed. I turned to my left and looked at her. She, the same Black woman who had administered the first, and this time I tucked her name away into my memory, having forgotten it in the excitement and overwhelming...
Josh Thompson
June trip to the New River Gorge The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until Friday, near-certain thunderstorms. Typical of the New, the weather proved unpredictable, and we had glorious sun the entire trip. I was eager to get out to the New, since my last...
The Marginalian
The Consolations of Chronodiversity: Geologist Turned Psychologist Ruth Allen on the 12 Kinds of... “I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars,” Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska wrote in her...
9 months ago
66
9 months ago
“I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars,” Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska wrote in her lovely poem “Possibilities.” Our preferences, of course, hardly matter to time — we live here suspended between the time of insects and the time of stars, our transient lives...
The Marginalian
Wonder-Sighting on Planet Earth: The Space Telescope Eye of the Scallop Inside Earth's most alien vision.
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music - enchantment is the precondition of all... When I read Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (1872) several...
over a year ago
59
over a year ago
When I read Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (1872) several years ago I was interested in it as a 19th century work, as a key text in the cult of Richard Wagner and an early example of the vogue for fantasizing that stuffy Prussian or...
The Marginalian
Stunning 200-Year-Old French Illustrations of Exotic, Endangered, and Extinct Birds From peacocks to penguins, a winged menagerie of wonder.
over a year ago
Blog -...
Book Review - The Surrender Experiment With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this eloquently penned biography of his “journey into life’s perfection”, he demonstrates the beauty that life can provide for us when we are not solely guided by our logical,...
This Space
39 Books: 1994 Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of...
a year ago
98
a year ago
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Road Hunting Sometimes I look at past images and marvel at what’s there. In this case, the marvel came from the...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Sometimes I look at past images and marvel at what’s there. In this case, the marvel came from the fact that we (Jen, Grant, and Ryan) drove this trail after we spent the night from where this was taken. Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
Ben Borgers
Hands Occupied
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let Us Think That We Build Forever' I’ve just learned that the English poet Clive Wilmer died on March 13 at age eighty. I knew him...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
I’ve just learned that the English poet Clive Wilmer died on March 13 at age eighty. I knew him first as a friend and champion of Edgar Bowers, Thom Gunn and Dick Davis, a co-translator of the Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti, a serious reader of John Ruskin and a fine poet in his...
Escaping Flatland
The newness of depth Fragments from the cutting room floor, vol 4
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is Still So Much I Do Not Know' I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as memoirs, diaries, journals, letters, blog posts, commonplace books, notebooks and essays--almost anything. In other words, a broad collection of forms in which the author and his...
The Marginalian
How to Be a Living Poem: Lucille Clifton on the Balance of Intellect and Intuition in Creative Work... "I didn’t graduate from college, which isn’t necessary to be a poet. It is only necessary to be...
a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Answering Machine” by Linda Pastan Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Answering Machine” by Linda Pastan appeared first on The...
a year ago
86
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Answering Machine” by Linda Pastan appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
29
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.
The Marginalian
Everything Is Already There: Javier Marías on the Courage to Heed Your Intuitions "This has nothing to do with premonitions, there is nothing supernatural or mysterious about it,...
over a year ago
71
over a year ago
"This has nothing to do with premonitions, there is nothing supernatural or mysterious about it, what’s mysterious is that we pay no heed to it."
Wuthering...
Books I read in March 2024 - Literature was a game of pillaging, and this book showed it. A nice little run at Persian literature this month.  And I am reading in Portuguese again,...
a year ago
50
a year ago
A nice little run at Persian literature this month.  And I am reading in Portuguese again, slowly, slowly. PERSIAN LITERATURE, MOSTLY CLASSICAL Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (1110),  Abolqasem Ferdowsi – See here for notes on this big epic in Dick Davis’s translation. The...
Wuthering...
The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox - counting the pages, he was quite terrified at the number,... Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through the 18th century, so she read,...
7 months ago
50
7 months ago
Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through the 18th century, so she read, obviously, The Female Quixote (1852) by Charlotte Lennox.  I had not read it, so I trailed along. An archetypal novelistic heroine, young Arabella has had her brain addled by novels: From...
The Elysian
Participatory science makes everyone a researcher So we can study the Earth at scale.
5 days ago
Ben Borgers
Pictures as Memories
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Certain Saving Humor' “Except for a certain saving humor, I should indeed have been a full monster.”  One definition of a...
5 months ago
18
5 months ago
“Except for a certain saving humor, I should indeed have been a full monster.”  One definition of a friend is someone with whom you can share any joke or other comic effort without fear of offending him. It may not be funny – the only pertinent criterion for judging humorousness...
This Space
39 Books: 2006 My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The...
a year ago
55
a year 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...
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...
a year ago
87
a year 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...
The American Scholar
Snake in the Grass The post Snake in the Grass appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 days ago
The American Scholar
A Pair of Elephants The post A Pair of Elephants appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rick Rubin on Listening If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in...
12 months ago
23
12 months ago
If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in the experience. When the piece ends, you might be surprised by where you find yourself. You’ve been transported to another place. The place where the music lives. — Rick...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Between Virgil and Young People Engrossed in Rock' In a 2009 interview with a publication in Barcelona, Spain, Adam Zagajewski is asked a question...
3 weeks ago
15
3 weeks ago
In a 2009 interview with a publication in Barcelona, Spain, Adam Zagajewski is asked a question about political correctness, euphemisms and other debasements of language. He replies: “There is the harsher side of existence -- disease and death -- and the loftier reasons for...
Josh Thompson
Growing in your first software development job I started my first software developer role a year ago. (November 2017) This is tremendously...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I started my first software developer role a year ago. (November 2017) This is tremendously exciting, of course, but introduces its own set of challenges, like: I finished Turing and I’ve got a job! Oh snap. I just finished a grueling program, and my reward is I’m fit to sit at...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson Day 5: Sept 14, 2023 — “But you can't predict the weather, Ms. Jackson.” — Ms. Jackson, Outkast We...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 5: Sept 14, 2023 — “But you can't predict the weather, Ms. Jackson.” — Ms. Jackson, Outkast We leave Vernal, Utah, and pass through Dinosaur, Utah. It’s the tiny town that leads into one of the many routes towards Dinosaur National Monument. It’s home to some 1,500 dinosaur...
Josh Thompson
November 2016 Review Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. This is naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. This is naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you this warning. My November goals were an extension of October’s goals. I feel comfortable with long-term unchanging goals. They were: Deepen my knowledge of front-end web...
ribbonfarm
History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I...
a year ago
21
a year ago
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I visited the city (on Kindle, so I didn’t realize when I started that it’s 600 pages plus another 250 odd notes). It’s dense and absorbing and I’ll probably do a reflections post...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 4 - It was an eerie, desolate night. At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three big changes hit The Story of the Stone...
6 months ago
68
6 months ago
At the two-thirds mark, after 80 chapters of the 120, three big changes hit The Story of the Stone (c. 1760 / 1791).  First, David Hawkes, the original translator of the Penguin edition, dies; John Minford finishes the job.  Second, the author of the novel, Cao Xueqin, dies,...
Josh Thompson
How to Move Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move happen: We both are in process with new jobs I just started working remotely for Litmus, which means I can seamlessly transition to Colorado this summer. Kristi spent a few days last week...
Josh Thompson
Change your MAC address with a shell script For a while, I’ve had notes from Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X saved, so if I am...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
For a while, I’ve had notes from Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X saved, so if I am using a wifi connection that limits me to thirty minutes or an hour or whatever, I can “spoof” a new MAC address, and when I re-connect to the wifi, the access point thinks I’m on...
The Marginalian
The Galapagos and the Meaning of Life: A Young Woman’s Bittersweet Experiment in Inner Freedom “We may think we are domesticated but we are not,” Jay Griffiths wrote in her homily on not wasting...
8 months ago
39
8 months ago
“We may think we are domesticated but we are not,” Jay Griffiths wrote in her homily on not wasting our wildness, insisting on the “primal allegiance” the human spirit has to the wild. A decade after artist Rockwell Kent headed to a remote Alaskan island “to stand face to face...
The Elysian
Am I a Democrat or a Republican? The case for going label-less.
6 months ago
The American Scholar
Kinship and Contradictions Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and Contradictions appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Cones, Coning, and Fixing Junctions, And How And Why “Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty This post is probably best...
3 months ago
40
3 months ago
“Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty This post is probably best viewed on desktop, with some links opening new tabs, viewed, closed, and then this post returned to. There’s a lot of videos farther down, some of them are tiktoks (sorry) and some of...
The American Scholar
Greg Ito The life cycle of a candle The post Greg Ito appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 2: Run your first tests (and make them pass) Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Josh Thompson
Fixing Ford and Washington Do all of these, in the right order/way/buy-in. btw, i’m pretending it’s easy. it’s not trivial, but...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Do all of these, in the right order/way/buy-in. btw, i’m pretending it’s easy. it’s not trivial, but it is doable: Step 1: Install car-friendly roundabouts targeting a ~20 mph throughput speed throughout the city and eliminate all stopsigns and stoplights Please see about...
The Elysian
Yes, Taylor Swift is just as genius as Mary Shelley The video from our live event.
9 months ago
The Elysian
The Cooperatist Manifesto that inspired Mondragon Father José María Arizmendiarrieta didn’t just imagine a better economic system, he built it.
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
Things Go Downhill After We Leave
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On POSIWID ...
2 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Nothing Bad About It A year ago, Jen and I made an overland run from the south end of Anza-Borrego to the northern end....
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
A year ago, Jen and I made an overland run from the south end of Anza-Borrego to the northern end. On the last night in Hawk Canyon, a super windy night made for less than ideal sleep. We ended up closing up the tent and sleeping in the front seats. Thankfully, the seats in a...
Josh Thompson
Who inspires you, and is still alive? There are lots of dead people that we look up to. But people that are alive, and not world-wide...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
There are lots of dead people that we look up to. But people that are alive, and not world-wide famous are a bit more knowable. Some of them will even reply to tweets you send them! So, here are a few people that I follow and have received TONS of amazing wisdom from. (I...
Ben Borgers
I Misjudged My Chinese Professor
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand...
5 months ago
38
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Your Literary Judgments Are Not Interesting' All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
All of us when young – readers, I mean – fancy ourselves rebels and independent thinkers but most of us are afflicted to varying degrees with the superego of the age. That is, we are influenced, whether we know it or not, by the critical climate, by the judgments and fashions of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Long Start I am awakened by the sound of people shuffling by our camp. When I look out the side past the flap...
a year ago
14
a year ago
I am awakened by the sound of people shuffling by our camp. When I look out the side past the flap of our rooftop tent, I can see what appears to be runners or hikers. I get out and wave at them. It's mid-May of 2022, and it's a glorious morning. Then it dawns on me; it's a trail...
Josh Thompson
Content but Restless There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard the “serenity prayer”: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. This prayer is...
The American Scholar
Bubble Girl The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American...
a year ago
87
a year ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: Fix Capitalism By September 30th.
10 months 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
16
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:...
Josh Thompson
Injury Impedes Improvement Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back in shape and it feels good. I am tempted to throw myself into climbing again. To climb every day, or maybe every other day, and finish every session with training. But here’s the...
The Elysian
Week 8: What communities should know about you? (Write a story about them)
a year ago
The American Scholar
The Baritone as Democrat How Lawrence Tibbett prophesied the Metropolitan Opera crisis of today The post The Baritone as...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
How Lawrence Tibbett prophesied the Metropolitan Opera crisis of today The post The Baritone as Democrat appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Shame and the Secret Chambers of the Self: Pioneering Sociologist and Philosopher Helen Merrell Lynd... "Experiences of shame throw a flooding light on what and who we are and what the world we live in...
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Poetic Science of the Ghost Pipe: Emily Dickinson and the Secret of Earth’s Most Supernatural... "That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."
a year ago
The American Scholar
On (Middle-Class) Frugality Does cutting costs mean robbing oneself of life’s small delights? The post On (Middle-Class)...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Does cutting costs mean robbing oneself of life’s small delights? The post On (Middle-Class) Frugality appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz - What I wanted now was the adventure of being... Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to...
over a year ago
61
over a year ago
Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to me because of its unusual use of the Pre-Socratic philosophers.  This is a domestic novel, a fine example of, borrowing from Trollope, the way we live now (or, to me, the way they...
Wuthering...
Books Read in June 2024 - "Why can't we steal the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted... Three weeks in Portugal meant less and different reading. FICTION Wolf Solent (1929), John Cowper...
a year ago
90
a year ago
Three weeks in Portugal meant less and different reading. FICTION Wolf Solent (1929), John Cowper Powys – among the most eccentric novels I have ever read, up there with his contemporaries D. H. Lawrence and Ronald Firbank!  I feel I should write about it; I feel I should read...
Wuthering...
Diogenes Laertius and the fun of the fragment We have the complete Plato, from multiple manuscript sources.  We have lost every published book...
over a year ago
56
over 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...
Wuthering...
the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted lives - John Cowper Powys's trees -... Wolf Solent has pressed his beautiful young wife against an ash tree, presumably as a prelude to...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
Wolf Solent has pressed his beautiful young wife against an ash tree, presumably as a prelude to sex, but he begins rubbing the bark: ‘Human brains! Human knots of confusion!’ he thought.  ‘Why can’t we steal the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted lives?’ (Wolf...
Ben Borgers
“21” by Patrick Roche
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Three Ways to Decide What to be When You Grow Up Recently, I have had to explain to people what is it that I want to do. This question is difficult...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Recently, I have had to explain to people what is it that I want to do. This question is difficult to answer for two reasons. The first reason is I am not yet strongly pulled into a specific position. My ideal answer would be “I want to do X role at company Y.” Short. Concise....
The American Scholar
Amy Wetsch Life, magnified The post Amy Wetsch appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Ploum.net
Pérenniser ma numérique éphémérité Pérenniser ma numérique éphémérité J’écris mon journal personnel à la machine à écrire. De simples...
7 months ago
15
7 months ago
Pérenniser ma numérique éphémérité J’écris mon journal personnel à la machine à écrire. De simples feuilles de papier que je fais relier chaque année et dont le contenu n’est nulle part en ligne. Pourtant, j’ai le sentiment que ce contenu a beaucoup plus de chances d’être un jour...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Quiet Power of Car-Free Neighborhoods Don’t just take my word for it. Researchers have found that about half of urban noise is...
10 months ago
12
10 months ago
Don’t just take my word for it. Researchers have found that about half of urban noise is attributable to motor vehicles. In some places the share is higher, such as in Toronto, where traffic produces about 60% of the background din. And silencing that cacophony can lead to...
The Marginalian
Václav Havel on How to Live with Your Greatest Failure Few things in life are more devastating than to give something your all and still fail. Not the...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
Few things in life are more devastating than to give something your all and still fail. Not the “fail better” of startup culture, not the “fail forward” of self-help, not the failure that is childhood’s fulcrum of learning, not the inspired mistakes that propel creative risk, but...
The Elysian
A self-governing forest Terra0 thinks nature should become economically independent.
2 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Silly, Trivial Things You Did When Young' “Of course, you live life forward and think about it backwards.”  I’ve spent the last month or so...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks ago
“Of course, you live life forward and think about it backwards.”  I’ve spent the last month or so thinking about the summer of 1973, when I visited Europe for the first time. This retrospective was prompted by my youngest son, who graduated in May from Rice University and the...
Josh Thompson
First pass with Elixir/Phoenix I’m digging into Elixir and Phoenix. I’m working through this tutorial to cloning Slack. The...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I’m digging into Elixir and Phoenix. I’m working through this tutorial to cloning Slack. The tutorial author says At the time of writing, I have ~1 week experience with Phoenix. Similar to Rubber Ducky Debugging, I am writing this blog post to force myself to think differently...
Ben Borgers
Punctuation
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Half Room of Living and Loving When I can’t sleep, I read children’s books. One night, I discovered In the Half Room (public...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
When I can’t sleep, I read children’s books. One night, I discovered In the Half Room (public library) by Carson Ellis in my tsundoku — an impressionistic invitation into a world where only half of everything exists. Leafing through this quietly delightful treasure, I had a flash...
The American Scholar
Visions From Jura What the world looked like to George Orwell during his final days The post Visions From Jura...
a month ago
13
a month ago
What the world looked like to George Orwell during his final days The post Visions From Jura appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
The Slight Edge, and why you should read it I read The Slight Edge a few months ago. Since then, it’s been the book I recommend most often to...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I read The Slight Edge a few months ago. Since then, it’s been the book I recommend most often to most people. (I don’t make book recommendations willy-nilly, but if something seems relevant to what the person I’m speaking to is experiencing/thinking about, I make a...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe ...
4 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
AMA With AI Futures Project Team ...
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside: Doris Lessing on the Antidote to Self-Righteousness and Our Best... This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand...
8 months ago
46
8 months ago
This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand with the masses turning the individuals within them on each other, stirring certainties and self-righteousness to distract from the uncomfortable unknowns, from the great open...
Ben Borgers
What is JumboCode?
over a year ago
The American Scholar
In the Mushroom True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business The post In...
7 months ago
30
7 months ago
True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business The post In the Mushroom appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Merger Self, the Seeker Self, and the Lifelong Challenge of Balancing Intimacy and Independence Each time I see a sparrow inside an airport, I am seized with tenderness for the bird, for living so...
a year ago
86
a year ago
Each time I see a sparrow inside an airport, I am seized with tenderness for the bird, for living so acutely and concretely a paradox that haunts our human lives in myriad guises — the difficulty of discerning comfort from entrapment, freedom from peril. It is a paradox rooted in...
Astral Codex Ten
Book Review: From Bauhaus To Our House ...
7 months ago
The Elysian
Our community round has opened—let's fund this book! + Join our call tonight!
a month ago
The Marginalian
Honing Life on the Edges of the Possible: Geologist Turned Psychoanalyst Ruth Allen on Boundaries... "At almost every conceivable level of our imagining, it is impossible to create a change without a...
10 months ago
69
10 months ago
"At almost every conceivable level of our imagining, it is impossible to create a change without a discontinuity, without a moment of not knowing who we are, or what we are going to become. Rupture precedes revolution."
sbensu
Industrial macros Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to the database.
The Marginalian
From Cells to Souls: The Poetic Science of How the Brain Became The making of our densely networked crucible of thought and tenderness.
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Miss Loved Ones Better: The Psychology of Waiting and Withstanding Absence On "the capacity to bear frustration without turning against one’s needy self, or against the person...
10 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings' Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a...
4 months ago
29
4 months ago
Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a result, Charles Lamb had little interest in the momentous events of his day. About “Boney” – Napoleon Bonaparte – he wished only to know the dictator’s height, unlike Hazlitt, who...
Escaping Flatland
On limitations that hide in your blindspot and how to find them
a year ago
The Marginalian
Milan Kundera on the Power of Coincidences and the Musicality of How Chance Composes Our Lives "Human lives... are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a...
a year ago
22
a year ago
"Human lives... are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence... into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life."
Josh Thompson
The Millionaire Next Door I’m struggling to know what to write about The Millionaire Next Door. It’s got many wonderful...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I’m struggling to know what to write about The Millionaire Next Door. It’s got many wonderful traits, and I strongly recommend that you read it (I wouldn’t mention it otherwise) but it’s got some flaws. I’m afraid if I focus on the flaws, I’ll turn people off from it that might...
The Marginalian
The Dalai Lama’s Ethical and Ecological Philosophy for the Next Generation, Illustrated "We are all interconnected in the universe, and from this, universal responsibility arises......
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
"We are all interconnected in the universe, and from this, universal responsibility arises... Everyone has the responsibility to develop a happier world."
Ben Borgers
Why Do We Still Use Snapchat?
over a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 2004 Bought for an eye-watering £13 in the LRB Bookshop three months before this blog began, Once Again...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Bought for an eye-watering £13 in the LRB Bookshop three months before this blog began, Once Again for Thucydides is another example in this series of how a book of under 100 pages can be worth as much as any number of maximalist breeze blocks. But do I really want to make such...
Ben Borgers
I Love Email
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Beyond Either/Or: Kierkegaard on the Passion for Possibility and the Key to Resetting Relationships "Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the...
11 months ago
54
11 months ago
"Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the possible, that eye which everywhere, ever young, ever burning, sees possibility."
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dungeons & Dragons taught me how to write alt text I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an advice column. The problem was the person who was running the game wanting to enliven his descriptions, as they felt like their narration was both boring and confusing. The advice for...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Hoja Santa On our first visit to Mexico City, and because we're often weary of lines, we opted out on the...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
On our first visit to Mexico City, and because we're often weary of lines, we opted out on the well-known Panaderia Rosetta. We even skipped eating the infamous Mexican pastry concha! But on this trip, after having a delicious chocolate one from Delirio, and seeing the location...
The Marginalian
What It’s Like to Be a Falcon: The Peregrine as a Portal to a Way of Seeing and a State of Being "You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky...
a year ago
95
a year ago
"You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky to roam at will through all the far provinces of light."
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
17
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...
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
a year ago
35
a year ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
Modular life, meaningful work Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 3
5 months ago
The American Scholar
The Given Child To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village? The...
a year ago
38
a year ago
To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village? The post The Given Child appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Nothing: The Illustrated Story of How John Cage Revolutionized Music Through Silence "We make our lives by what we love."
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Website Rewrite 2
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Bloodless Snippet of History' Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks,...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
Since he was a little boy my middle son has been a serial enthusiast. Back then it was rocks, carnivorous plants, Dmitri Mendeleev and the periodic table, coins, electronics – one focus of interest after another. He wasn’t fickle or easily distracted by the next shiny thing....
The Marginalian
William James on the Most Vital Understanding for Successful Relationships "Neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer."
over a year ago
Wuthering...
How A Dance to the Music of Time works, so far - I always enjoy hearing the details of other... My writing here is often about what surprised me or did not.  So let’s have that about the first...
a month ago
20
a month ago
My writing here is often about what surprised me or did not.  So let’s have that about the first four novels of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, the twelve volume sequence published from 1951 to 1975 and covering a refracted version of Powell’s life from his later...
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest... “All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
The American Scholar
The March Down Main The post The March Down Main appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ We're not in Kansas anymore Day 20: Sept 29, 2023 — Alyssa and Craig take us to Post Coffee for a farewell coffee and tea. I...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 20: Sept 29, 2023 — Alyssa and Craig take us to Post Coffee for a farewell coffee and tea. I try to pay, but Craig literally holds me in place while Alyssa sneaks in with a credit card. We linger in the sun over drinks, and like most departures, say goodbye with the hopes...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 355.5 ...
8 months ago
Ben Borgers
I Keep Rewriting My Personal Website
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Favorite Books of 2023 To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of...
a year ago
36
a year ago
To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of the questions that live in you and the reckonings that keep you up at night. While the literature of the present comprises only a tiny fraction of my own reading, here are a...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Notes at 46 Thoughts, observations, and new ways of approaching life that have been percolating since my last...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Thoughts, observations, and new ways of approaching life that have been percolating since my last birthday: Owning a personal digital space is more important than ever before. Having come to the internet during a time when all it was were personal fan sites and journals, and the...
The American Scholar
The Source The post The Source appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
The Marginalian
200 Years of Solitude: Great Writers, Artists, and Scientists in Praise of the Creative and... There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows...
12 months ago
68
12 months ago
There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows free to speak. That space expands in solitude. To create anything — a poem, a painting, a theorem — is to find the voice in the silence that has something to say to the world. In...
The American Scholar
Big Rock, High Plateau The post Big Rock, High Plateau appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Mirrored Malaysia After almost three years apart due to the pandemic, we were heartwarmingly reunited with my family...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
After almost three years apart due to the pandemic, we were heartwarmingly reunited with my family in August of 2022. It was an intense and dense ten days, spending almost all waking hours together: talking, eating, and watching the time go by as fast as it would arrive. I...
Ben Borgers
About
9 months ago
The Marginalian
Kamau & ZuZu Find a Way: A Tender Lunar Fable about the Stubborn Courage of Prevailing Over the Odds... "But we will have to find a way to live, as people do."
10 months ago
The Elysian
TERRAFORM: An essay collection about the future of our planet Six writers explore the future of our world for an online series and print pamphlet.
a month ago
The Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
3 months ago
The Elysian
Going from research to writing Our third "research with me" session.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Passionate Note of Victory' “The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness,...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
“The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness, coyness, archness and condescension are only the most obvious ones.”  In 1976, Anthony Hecht wrote the preface for a new edition of Walter de la Mare’s Songs of Childhood (1902). He doesn’t...
The Marginalian
The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking,... "If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
"If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination... begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling."
Ben Borgers
Getir Colors
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Cheating on Field Notes
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
2023 Annual Review It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always...
a year ago
17
a year ago
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always found value in writing my own, even as there is a few years I’ve missed, since I started the habit way back in 2015. for a long time, I did annual reviews. 2020 was late, and then for...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Carrying On, Backing Out, Moving on But to my original remark, I’m backing out of Meta Corporation platforms. Maybe that’s all I mean....
7 months ago
20
7 months ago
But to my original remark, I’m backing out of Meta Corporation platforms. Maybe that’s all I mean. It’s the election, of course, and its campaigns. It’s the devolution of news and journalism and the rise of manipulative and untruthful media. It’s all kinds of things. Lies and...
The Marginalian
The Living Wonder of Leafcutter Ants, in Mesmerizing Stop Motion Alongside humans, leafcutter ants form some of nature’s vastest, most sophisticated societies — a...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Alongside humans, leafcutter ants form some of nature’s vastest, most sophisticated societies — a single mature colony can contain as many ants as there are people on Earth, living with a great deal more social harmony and consonance of purpose than we do. They are also one of...
Ben Borgers
Habit Toddler
over a year ago
Ploum.net
Du désir profond de se faire arnaquer Du désir profond de se faire arnaquer Pour suivre les modes et faire comme tout le monde Stefano...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
Du désir profond de se faire arnaquer Pour suivre les modes et faire comme tout le monde Stefano Marinelli, un administrateur système chevronné, installe principalement des serveurs sous FreeBSD, OpenBSD ou NetBSD pour ses clients. Le plus difficile ? Arriver à convaincre un...
The American Scholar
Tiger Mom At a forest preserve in India, a writer sees the world anew and learns how to focus her son’s...
4 months ago
22
4 months ago
At a forest preserve in India, a writer sees the world anew and learns how to focus her son’s restless mind The post Tiger Mom appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Waking up Early
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in February 2024 - if there is truth in poets' prophesies, then in my fame forever will... Persian literature in March: the epic Shahnameh in Dick Davis’s mostly prose translation, plus the...
a year ago
86
a year ago
Persian literature in March: the epic Shahnameh in Dick Davis’s mostly prose translation, plus the classical poets he translated in Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz, plus some Rumi and at least one contemporary Iranian novel, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s The Colonel (2009). ...
Josh Thompson
Things You Can't Do from Behind a Computer, pt. 1 Meet people. Over the last nine or ten months, I can clearly remember a handful of conversations I...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Meet people. Over the last nine or ten months, I can clearly remember a handful of conversations I had. I initiated each conversation with someone that I wanted to learn from. Most I had some prior relationship with (I.E. I had met them, or I knew someone who knew them). This was...
The American Scholar
Cobi Moules Landscapes of queer joy The post Cobi Moules appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Prison ...
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
Fred Roger's Method For Writing Scripts Someone said: People think this is silly, but read about Fred rogers’ method for writing a script...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Someone said: People think this is silly, but read about Fred rogers’ method for writing a script for his show. The rules aren’t fully applicable to presentations, but the attention to detail and to the Interpretation of the audience is. Don’t use any words carelessly. I...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Dark is Dubious We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been home for two nights, where we luxuriated in a king-size bed with our own pillows (we don’t leave home without them). How We Got Here Since the last missive, we parted ways with...
The American Scholar
“The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone appeared first on The American...
a week 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
27
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...
The Elysian
120 million employee-owners in one generation We have a moonshot opportunity to make the bottom half way richer. Here’s how we take it.
2 months ago
The American Scholar
Consolidated Ruin The post Consolidated Ruin appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in September 2024 - Boring books had their origin in boring readers My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said...
9 months ago
75
9 months ago
My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said it out loud so maybe I will really do it. November is Norwegian month at Dolce Bellezza.  I will be joining her by reading at least the first novel, The Other Name (2019), of Jon...
Josh Thompson
What Do You Do? I enjoy meeting new people. Usually, one of the first questions I’ll ask them is “What to you...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
I enjoy meeting new people. Usually, one of the first questions I’ll ask them is “What to you do?” They usually respond with their occupation, or their status in school. My follow-up question is “When you’re not doing that, what do you do?” Sometimes this is a conversational...
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
21
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....
Ploum.net
L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre Éditorial rédigé pour le Lama déchaîné n°9, l’hebdomadaire...
6 months ago
15
6 months ago
L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre Éditorial rédigé pour le Lama déchaîné n°9, l’hebdomadaire réalisé par l’April afin d’alerter sur la précarité financière de l’association. J’étais limité à 300 mots. Pour un bavard comme moi, c’est un exercice très difficile ! (il est...
sbensu
Enterprise sales meets product development What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide...
a year ago
16
a year ago
What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide and more of a cautionary tale.
The American Scholar
Caprock Adventures worth the silence The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Took Off My Hat to This Little Fool' “Is it not strange that the phantoms of a blood-stained period have so airy a grace and look with...
3 months ago
23
3 months ago
“Is it not strange that the phantoms of a blood-stained period have so airy a grace and look with so tender eyes? -- that I recall with difficulty the danger and death and horrors of the time, and without effort all that was gracious and picturesque?”  The Battle of...