Full Width [alt+shift+f] FOCUS MODE Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
Top Categories > literature
#all #programming #history #technology #startups #life #science #literature #creative #architecture #design #travel #finance #comics #AI #indiehacker #cartography Muted Categories [alt+←][alt+→]
ribbonfarm
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm I’m a little late to the party, but I just finished the wonderfully imaginative There Is No...
a year ago
28
a year ago
I’m a little late to the party, but I just finished the wonderfully imaginative There Is No Antimemetics Division (2020) by qntm. The premise is that our world is full of things with antimemetic properties. An antimeme is “an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by...
The Marginalian
Kafka on Friendship and the Art of Reconnection Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a...
9 months ago
54
9 months ago
Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a profound knowledge of each other, of the soul beneath the costume of personality — that lovely Celtic notion of anam cara. We bring this knowledge, this mutual understanding, to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'With Purple Prose and a Bad Actor’s Gestures' On April 9, 1778, Johnson and Boswell dined at the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where Edward Gibbon...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
On April 9, 1778, Johnson and Boswell dined at the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where Edward Gibbon and Davide Garrick, among others, were also present. The subject of translations, including Pope’s Homer, emerged. “We must try its effect as an English poem,” Johnson said, “that...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 380 ...
3 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ This Is What We Have To Lose Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately forward into severity and decline. It’s too late for some aspects but not too late to avoid some of the worst aspects. The fires, the smoke, and the record-high temperatures that...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Like an Occupying Army' Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to...
6 months ago
34
6 months ago
Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to mind, seemingly out of nowhere: on first waking in the morning and while preparing a meal in the kitchen. None is summoned. They blip to the surface like bubbles in a pond. Last weekend I...
Josh Thompson
Travel somewhere fun. But first get on Scott's email list Most of us have a bucket list item of “travel abroad”, right? It gets harder to realize once you...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Most of us have a bucket list item of “travel abroad”, right? It gets harder to realize once you start looking through flight prices, though. If you and your significant other want to head to Europe or Asia, you might be dropping $2500, minimum, for the both of you. That’s...
This Space
The end of literature, part four This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain...
over a year ago
59
over a year ago
This tweet has been seen thousands of times since it was posted on the 82nd anniversary of Britain and France declaring war on Germany. Not that the coincidence means much. At least, no more than what the general population, interest and powerful mean here, or indeed what poetry...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Accumulated instinct With age and experience, I’ve accumulated enough inspiration to trust my instincts. There’s a...
7 months ago
22
7 months ago
With age and experience, I’ve accumulated enough inspiration to trust my instincts. There’s a confidence that when the moment arrives, I’ll recall that inspiring visual with just enough detail to fuel my decision-making or creative process. — Simon Collison Simon and I have...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Deeper Reasons Democrats Lost In other words, the story is less a rightward shift than an anti-Trump collapse. And, more...
8 months ago
18
8 months ago
In other words, the story is less a rightward shift than an anti-Trump collapse. And, more importantly, that many people have generally exited the political process all together. I'm mostly abstaining from the many hot takes on why the election went the way it did. This may be...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Myth of “Do What You Love” The most striking point, to me, from Tokumitsu’s book is how easily the myth of ’do what you love’...
a year ago
15
a year ago
The most striking point, to me, from Tokumitsu’s book is how easily the myth of ’do what you love’ cracks when you press on it. The underlying message of such a myth, she writes, is that ‘each individual’s specialness will guide him or her to work that he or she enjoys and that...
Wuthering...
Please read the Roman plays with me (although not all of them) - Plautus, Terence, Seneca Roman plays, a sampling, readalong #1. Fresh off the Greek plays, I want to revisit some of the...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
Roman plays, a sampling, readalong #1. Fresh off the Greek plays, I want to revisit some of the surviving Roman plays to remind myself what they are like.  Twenty-six comedies and ten tragedies have survived.  I read about half of them long ago and plan to reread fewer than...
Ben Borgers
What is JumboCode?
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Value of Being Wrong: Lewis Thomas on Generative Mistakes In praise of our "property of error, spontaneous, uncontrolled, and rich in possibilities."
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Crystal Ball The post Crystal Ball appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Mundango Mundago is a game about enjoying the small things in life. Each day you get a brand new board of...
9 months ago
20
9 months ago
Mundago is a game about enjoying the small things in life. Each day you get a brand new board of activities you can pursue. Your board is yours. Your friends' boards will be different. Tap items to check them off as you complete them. — Dave Rupery Thanks for a little bit of joy,...
Ben Borgers
Customer Rewards Programs
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Taken For A Ride There’s a visceral reaction when the idea of an autonomous car is brought up. “No way!” “I don’t...
11 months ago
13
11 months ago
There’s a visceral reaction when the idea of an autonomous car is brought up. “No way!” “I don’t trust robots.” “How can that even be safe?” These are commonplace in the discourse of driverless vehicles. Some protestors have even placed cones on the vehicles’ sensors and cameras...
Josh Thompson
Pry Tips and Tricks the following is cross-posted from development.wombatsecurity.com. I wrote about some handy extra...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
the following is cross-posted from development.wombatsecurity.com. I wrote about some handy extra features I’ve found using Pry much of my day. I joined the Wombat team a few months ago, and have been working on the threatsim product. We had a bit of a bug backlog, and myself and...
The Marginalian
Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and... The most moving story of self-sacrifice in the history of science.
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Burned The post Burned appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Wuthering...
Orestes by Euripides - And what had seemed so right, / as soon as done, became / evil, monstrous,... I want to invite anyone interested to join me in reading Aristotle’s Poetics, the foundation of...
over a year ago
70
over a year ago
I want to invite anyone interested to join me in reading Aristotle’s Poetics, the foundation of Western literary criticism, influential to the present day and bizarrely dominant, almost sacred, for centuries.  I hope to write about it at the end of the month, having just reread...
The American Scholar
“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on...
a year ago
105
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Birds, Loves, and Obscure Sorrows: The Best of The Marginalian 2024 Hindsight is how we connect the dots that figure our lives. To look back on even a single year is to...
8 months ago
47
8 months ago
Hindsight is how we connect the dots that figure our lives. To look back on even a single year is to see clearly the contour of who we are in its points of attention and priority. “How we spend our days,” Annie Dillard wrote, “is how we spend our lives.” How we spend our minds is...
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.
2 months ago
Wuthering...
Platonov's Chevengur - “But communism’s about to set in... Why am I finding everything so hard?” Another remarkable Russian novel finally made it into English last year, Andrey Platonov’s...
4 months ago
53
4 months ago
Another remarkable Russian novel finally made it into English last year, Andrey Platonov’s Chevengur, written in 1929 but not published until 1972, in Paris. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler have been translating Platonov for decades now, and this novel and the apparatus...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings' Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a...
5 months ago
37
5 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Mystery of Language I Shall Never Solve' Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
Quite a marvelous season after a protracted Northern winter, spring is the hoariest of subjects for a poem. How many ways are there to be jubilant or render the sensation of “cavorting with the milkmaids,” as an old friend once put it? The effort usually comes off as hackneyed or...
The American Scholar
Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory...
9 months ago
47
9 months ago
Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Streets in Asheville Quick-and-dirty street analysis in Asheville, NC A few months ago, I visited Asheville, NC. It’s a...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Quick-and-dirty street analysis in Asheville, NC A few months ago, I visited Asheville, NC. It’s a nice town, and has a great pedestrian life, as far as I can tell. As a thought experiment, I decided to see how well I could make the case for reducing the road width of a few...
The American Scholar
“How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared...
11 months ago
45
11 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ I Don't Have Facebook I don’t have an account with the big blue F. It’s 2015. The social network is almost 11 years old....
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I don’t have an account with the big blue F. It’s 2015. The social network is almost 11 years old. It’s remarkable — over a decade in existence and, mostly, still going strong. I read about it a lot. I have friends who work there. I have been recruited and asked by the same...
The American Scholar
The Support Ship The post The Support Ship appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'She’s Gone, She Was Here and Then Gone' Mike Juster tells me Jane Greer – “North Dakota Jane” – a gifted poet with an ever-ready sense of...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Mike Juster tells me Jane Greer – “North Dakota Jane” – a gifted poet with an ever-ready sense of humor, has died, age seventy-two. In her final Tweet, Jane wrote on July 3: “I’ve been in the hospital and am not sure when they’ll release me. I have diverticulitis and a perforated...
Wuthering...
Finishing The Story of the Stone - What a blessing this is, to return to the scene of my childhood... How I wish all long novels were published in sensible multi-volume editions.  I have finished...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
How I wish all long novels were published in sensible multi-volume editions.  I have finished The Story of the Stone, 2,500 pages in five volumes, the last two translated by John Minford.  Cao Xueqin and his posthumous editor Gao E again share credit for authorship.  Chapters...
Astral Codex Ten
Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
9 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shaping Tombs in Words' Catharine Savage Brosman describes her late husband, Patric Savage, like this:  “I am bereft   “of...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
Catharine Savage Brosman describes her late husband, Patric Savage, like this:  “I am bereft   “of curator, you see, of one who cared tremendously— for books, for me—but would have sacrificed the whole collection for my sake.”   The poem is “Pat Curating His Library” (Arm in Arm,...
Ben Borgers
Make sure your university events are actually interesting
5 months ago
Wuthering...
Not Shakespeare - a preliminary, semi-formed invitation to read plays by Shakespeare's... Here’s something I’ve been wanting to do.  I’ve been wanting to return to the plays of...
2 months ago
34
2 months ago
Here’s something I’ve been wanting to do.  I’ve been wanting to return to the plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson and so on.  The Spanish Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, The Knight of the Burning Pestle,  Bartholomew Fair.  It has been a while...
The American Scholar
Braña Curuchu The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The Marginalian
Let the Last Thing Be Song "When I die, I want to be sung across the threshold."
a year ago
The American Scholar
We Are the Borg Is the convergence of human and machine really upon us? The post We Are the Borg appeared first on...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Is the convergence of human and machine really upon us? The post We Are the Borg appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Troubleshooting Chinese Character Sets in MySQL A while back, I picked up a bug where when a customer tried to save certain kinds of data using...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
A while back, I picked up a bug where when a customer tried to save certain kinds of data using Chinese characters, we were replacing the Chinese characters like 平仮名 with a series of ?. This will be a quick dive through how I figured out what the problem was, and then validated...
Josh Thompson
Context Setting for certain patterns & classes of relationship difficulties I’ve been “catching up” a lot in my life lately. Some of that catching up involves bringing up to...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’ve been “catching up” a lot in my life lately. Some of that catching up involves bringing up to speed various people I’ve not spoken too (or spoken too much, or openly, or recently, or ever, or some combination thereof). I am strongly biased towards written/editable/consistent...
This Space
"A mighty, contagious absence" The number of obituaries, tributes, backhanded compliments and overt smears in the corporate news...
a year ago
94
a year ago
The number of obituaries, tributes, backhanded compliments and overt smears in the corporate news media following the death of John Pilger reveal the state of journalism in our time. [1] Can you name one living Anglophone journalist whose loss would prompt such widespread notice?...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 379 ...
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Fun Which Is Ebullient All Over Yours' A pun is best delivered without announcing itself as a pun. Those ungifted at wordplay tend...
a month ago
21
a month ago
A pun is best delivered without announcing itself as a pun. Those ungifted at wordplay tend to underline, boldface and italicize their every attempt at a pun, most of which are already feeble. Thus, the pun’s bad reputation and the ensuing groans. In contrast I love a good,...
The American Scholar
“Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared...
10 months ago
60
10 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Delicate, Invisible Web You Wove' Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou,...
5 months ago
33
5 months ago
Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound In the dark jungle of a mango grove . . .”   I might have guessed Kipling or some forgotten Georgian poet. Perhaps it’s a verse omitted by Eliot from Old Possum’s Book of...
Ben Borgers
Tufts Meal Plan Wrapped
a year ago